Shapeshifter
by Godfather
Summary: a powerful metamorph implicates Robin in a crime, turning the Titans into overnight fugitives. How can they stop her though when she can gain not only their appearances, but their powers as well? RobinStarfire in later chapters.
1. Default Chapter

Megan Fraud walked up to the bank entrance, and smiled. All around her, normal everyday people walked along, doing their everyday business and paying no attention to the blond haired teenage girl who stood, motionless among the moving masses of people. She was analyzing the local bank, and was now just about done. She was now sure that she could pull it off.  
  
She hurried over to a nearby dumpster and looked around to make sure no one was looking. Then she closed her eyes, and activated her powers.  
  
The transformation was near-instantaneous. Her features morphed and twisted, and her clothes took on different shapes and colors and textures.  
  
She emerged from behind the dumpster a few seconds later, looking nothing like she had when she'd hid behind it in the first place. Her features were now distinctly male, her hair was black, and a mask covered her eyes. Her build was male as well, and her attire had been radically altered. She now wore a green, short-sleeved bodysuit and green gloves. A red, titanium Klvar reinforced vest went over it, containing an emblem with a white R in a black circle on the left side. Black boots, a black cape, and a yellow utility belt completed the ensemble.  
  
She was a perfect look-alike of the Teen Titan, Robin.  
  
She walked back over to the bank, this time, commanding a lot more attention. After all, it wasn't every day people got see Robin, the famous teen superhero. She pushed open the doors and strode confidently in.  
  
A worker in the bank looked up, a grin on her face. The smile disappeared when 'Robin' pulled out a Heckler &Koch Mp-5 and let a couple bursts upward, tearing the ceiling lights into sparking shreds. 'Robin' then leveled the gun at the attendant. "Hey guys," he said. It was a perfect imitation of Robin's voice. "If you would be so kind as to give me all your valuables, as well as everything in the bank's vaults, I'd be much obliged, and so would you if you don't like dealing with really bloody and graphically violent scenes." 'He' chuckled and then fired the gun once more into the air. "Move!"  
  
***  
  
"I can't find the remote!"  
  
It was a typical outburst that could be heard daily at Teen Titans HQ, and it belonged to the Titan known as Cyborg, who was presently trying to locate the 'cursed' remote, as he considered it. It seemed that every day, the remote to the only television the Teen Titans owned would go inexplicably missing, and take hours to find.  
  
Cyborg ignored the look that Robin and Starfire gave him from their perch on the couch. A look that basically said, 'shut up will ya! We're trying to semi-flirt with each other here'. He also ignored Beast Boy's shout of protest as he effortlessly picked up the couch that the green-skinned animorph happened to be sitting on. He looked at the ground where the couch had been. Still no remote.  
  
"Why do you not buy a universal remote?" Starfire asked innocently. Robin tells me that they can work on any of your human television sets."  
  
"I would," Cyborg grumbled, letting the couch drop back to the floor, ":but I'm flat broke."  
  
Raven, the last member of the team, descended the stairs just then, looking dark and foreboding as usual. "If you are seeking the remote, I suggest you look on top of the TV."  
  
Cyborg's head did a one-eighty. There it was, the precious remote sitting gloriously atop the television. Cyborg reached out and his mechanical arm extended the extra four feet need to reach it, bringing it back to him. "Thanks Raven," he said, hopping onto the couch that sat right in front of the television. "Now, lets see what's on."  
  
Cyborg flipped through the channels, passing an old sitcom, some country music videos, a biography of Bill Cosby-  
  
"Oooh," Starfire exultedall of the sudden. "That's you Robin."  
  
Robin's eyes narrowed. "On TV?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Cyborg, who's interest was also piqued surfed the channels until he found what Starfire had been referring to. Sure enough, on the local news station Robin's face sat on the upper left hand corner of the screen while below, recent footage was playing.  
  
" . . .Witnesses say that Robin pulled out a handgun, fired it into the air, and then demanded that they give him all of their possessions. He then subsequently threw a bomb at the back wall, and darted out through the resulting hole." The reporter's voice droned on with a reminder that what the viewers were seeing below was footage that the bank's hidden cameras had taken only a few moments ago. Sure enough, it showed the Boy Wonder firing a handgun into the air and the pointing it at the terrified bank customers.  
  
All of the Titans were shocked, their jaws hanging somewhere around their waistline. Of all of them, Robin was probably the most surprised. What he was seeing just wasn't possible. He had never even been inside a bank, much less robbed one. And he'd been right here in the Teen Titans Headquarters chatting with Starfire at the time when he'd allegedly committed the crime.  
  
When the reporter started talking about how a massive manhunt was going underway to locate the fugitive criminal, Cyborg turned the set off. "What the heck," he muttered.  
  
"I sense that something is not right," Raven ominously stated.  
  
"Well duh," piped up Beast Boy. "They're saying Robin's a criminal, and that he robbed a bank when we know he was sitting right here with us."  
  
"This is very troubling," said Starfire. If one didn't know better, they'd say she was on the verge of tears.  
  
The only one yet to make a comment was Robin, so everyone turned to him. He seemed to be deep in thought.  
  
"Well," said Cyborg, "whaddya think is goin' on?"  
  
Robin shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I know I didn't just rob a bank, but according to the news, there's witnesses who saw someone whom they at least thought was Robin steal a lot of money. The guy on the bank's hidden camera footage looks just like me."  
  
"But it cannot be you," Starfire stubbornly insisted, putting a hand on Robin's arm. "Someone is framing you."  
  
"If the news station can be trusted, there is a manhunt taking place to locate you, Robin," Raven began, "it won't take them long to come pounding on our door."  
  
"I know, I know." Robin stood rose to his feet. "Cyborg, I want you to record anything on the news relating to my alleged bank robbery. Beast Boy, Raven, monitor our surveillance systems. I want you to let me know if any police helicopters or boats approach the island. Starfire, I need you to fly me over to the mainland. I want to see the crime scene for myself, and if I'm lucky, maybe I'll find some guy wandering around who looks like me and has a couple thousand stolen dollars on him."  
  
Cyborg rummaged through one of the manifold cabinets to find a blank tape, while Raven and Beast Boy went over to the video room, where they could access all of the footage from the multiple dozens of surveillance cameras that surrounded the tiny island that housed the Teen Titans' T-shaped Headquarters.  
  
Starfire followed Robin up to the roof , floating up into the air. "Robin, I'm so sorry about you being set up-" she started to say.  
  
"No need to be sorry," said Robin, all business-like now. "What we need to do is find out what happened and stop whoever it was that really did it."  
  
Starfire nodded, her face still rather mournful. "Yeah, of course.' She floated over behind Robin, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind and lifting them both into the air. It was a maneuver that they'd practiced before, so both Robin and Starfire were able to manage positions that weren't too uncomfortable.  
  
"Are you ready?" asked Starfire.  
  
"Born ready."  
  
"What?" Starfire, being rather new to Earth, had yet to learn some of the human phrases' meanings.  
  
"Never mind. Just start flying. Stay at around sixty miles per hour, and land us on the rooftop of a building that's relatively close to the bank."  
  
"What if someone spots you?"  
  
"They won't." Robin would have preferred total darkness as opposed to the current waning daylight. Total darkness would have been ideal, since Robin was well accustomed to operating in the dark of the night thanks to his adventures with Batman, and it would severely lessen the chances of him and Starfire being spotted.  
  
He felt that familiar light-headed sensation as his feet left the ground. He looked up at Starfire at the exact same instant that she happened to look down at him. She gave him a reassuring smile, and then looked ahead, as they zoomed towards the city. 


	2. Major trouble

Megan Fraud could not help but resonate the stereotypical evil laugh  
that the stereotypical villain always learned to master. She walked up  
the steps to her house, having already reverted back to her normal,  
teen girl self. Anyone looking at her would have though that the  
backpack she wore contained school books or some such teenage thing,  
not diamonds and fancy watches and wads upon wads of dollar bills.  
What she had collected would more than pay for that new car she'd been  
wanting to get . . .  
  
Why had she impersonated Robin when robbing a bank? It was all part of  
her plan, which really wasn't that spectacular at all. There's a  
certain line of thought that says the best way to keep from being  
stopped is to stop whoever it is that would stop you. Not the police,  
they were all bumbling imbeciles, the Teen Titans. Almost every week,  
the headlines blared how Robin had heroically defused a hostage  
situation or Cyborg had managed to stop a train before it ran over a  
defenseless little girl. Even Starfire rescued the occasional kitten  
stuck in a tree and Beast had done his share of stopping the bad guys  
as well. Even with her shape-shifting abilities, Megan harbored no  
illusions that the city's own group of teenaged superheroes wouldn't  
at least try to get in the way when she, say, tried to rob a bank.  
  
So she'd set their leader up for a crime that she'd committed,  
reasoning that the Titans would be too busy trying to keep their own  
leader out of the slammer to worry about her.  
  
She took out her key and opened the door, closing it shut behind her.  
By now, she figured, the bank holdup would be all over the news. She  
turned on her television and plopped onto the couch, propping her feet  
up on a nearby chair. It was no hard thing to find a news station and  
when she did, her wish was granted. A middle aged female reporter  
wearing way too much poorly-applied makeup was talking on a popular  
news show about all the actions that were going to be taken to bring  
Robin to justice.  
  
Megan chuckled as the woman blabbed about how Robin's superhero status  
didn't make him exempt from the law and all that. She imagined the  
Teen Titans were having a fit right about now.  
  
"Well Teen Titans," she said, "you ain't seen nothing yet."  
  
***  
  
Cyborg pushed the eject button, popping out the tape. It now had three  
hours worth of coverage from the hottest new media craze, the Robin  
Robberies, as they were now dubbed. Cyborg could already see the  
headlines that would grace then tops of every major newspaper outlet.  
BOY WONDER WANDERS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LAW. Or maybe TEEN TITAN  
TURNS TO THEFT!  
  
Hopefully, what Cyborg had managed to record would be of some help,  
but he wasn't done. Cyborg had no doubt that there was still some  
footage from the crime scene that hadn't been released to the media.  
So he grabbed his laptop, plugged it into his arm which happened to  
contain a wireless modem, and logged on to the World Wide Web. Given  
his intimate knowledge of all things computerized, it was no hard task  
to hack into the US bank's most heavily guarded files. He hoped that  
they computerized all of the video and audio footage from their  
surveillance cameras, otherwise, the effort it had taken to get in  
would have been wasted.  
  
Pay dirt. A few more seconds of typing and the Teen Titan had access  
to any video file he wanted. He clicked the one that seemed to be the  
most relevant and opened it up. A screen appeared on the left hand  
side of the computer and he made a few adjustments to augment the  
size. Thankfully, the graphics and media systems on his computer were  
state of the state of the art. The clips played flawlessly.  
  
It showed Robin walking in, and then a few seconds later pulling out a  
handgun, he couldn't make out the model. Several muzzle flashes  
indicated that Robin had fired into the air, and then he proceeded to  
collect everyone's valuables as well as a great sum of money from the  
bank's safe.  
  
Anyone who wasn't extraordinarily close to Robin would be fooled.  
Cyborg wasn't though, since whoever was masquerading as his friend  
hadn't done it perfectly. The walk was all wrong, and Robin had never  
spoken with a British accent. This pretender also had a wraparound  
mask, which seemed to be tied around his head. Robin's mask on the  
other hand had a natural adherence to the skin, so it didn't need  
anything else to keep it attached to his head. Other than those  
things, the impersonator's performance was flawless.  
  
Cyborg downloaded the second clip, but all that had was Robin  
apparently taunting the poor customers and workers and then tossing a  
bomb at one of the walls, gouging an ugly hole in it which he used as  
his convenient exit. Emergency workers and policemen filled the scene  
with a couple of minutes, and then the clip ended.  
  
Cyborg saved the vid clips onto his computer, and then shut it down.  
Robin, having been personally trained by the world's greatest  
detective, would be able to get some more information from what Cyborg  
had collected.  
  
Raven and Beast Boy meanwhile sat in a large, dark room with one  
entire wall that was entirely made of television monitors, hologram  
projectors, and a console to control it all. Raven was absorbed in  
perpetually checking on all of the screens to make sure that no one  
was coming. Not that it wouldn't happen, the news stations had pretty  
much said that Robin would be hunted down at all costs, it was only a  
matter of time.  
  
Beast Boy gave her a sideways glance. "See anything yet?"  
  
"Not yet." Raven hadn't bothered to look up. "But-"  
  
Whatever shed been about to say was cut off by the blaring of alarms.  
Someone had breached the islands security perimeters. Both Titans'  
heads swiveled towards the wall of monitors. It wasn't hard to see who  
had set off the alarm. About a dozen black helicopters were rapidly  
approaching, all bore government markings, and all looked quite  
unfriendly. On the water, even more motorboats of various sizes sped  
toward the island.  
  
"Aw crap," Beast Boy muttered. "They're here.  
  
The Teen Titans comm. system crackled suddenly. They were being  
contacted.  
  
"Attention Teen Titans," said a raspy voice on the other end. It was  
so loud that Cyborg heard it, causing him to come running into the  
room. "Robin is wanted by the government for high felony and vandalism  
(I have no idea how the legal system works, so I just came up with  
these charges off the top of my head). We have a warrant to search the  
Island and the premises for him. Any attempts to interfere or hamper  
our search in any way will be dealt with harshly and immediately."  
  
"Tell them he's not here," Cyborg urged.  
  
Raven shook her head. "No, we'll let them comb every inch of the  
place, it'll keep them busy and buy us a lot of time to warn Robin and  
figure out how to hide him until we can get this whole mess figured  
out."  
  
The implications were not lost on any of them. They were about to  
break the law, several laws, and they were supposed to be the good  
guys.  
  
The government helicopter and watercraft squads neared ever close.  
  
***  
  
Starfire and Robin landed on the barren rooftop of an antiques store  
that was just across the street from the bank. It had been hard to fly  
in without attracting any attention, but under Robin's guidance,  
Starfire had managed it. The scene below was a beehive of activity.  
Crime scene taped cordoned off the area, while people were being  
interviewed by the dozens, both by police and the media.  
  
"Oh my," Starfire said, peeking out from behind Robin's shoulder. "I  
would not have thought that it would be such a big deal to people if  
you robbed one of these bank places. I mean, of course it would be  
rather odd, and quite wrong, but the amount of coverage that a small  
town bank robbery like this is getting . . .I don't understand. "  
  
"Me neither Star, but one thing you have to learn about earth is that  
the human media tends to over-sensationalize things, and it doesn't  
help when you're a semi-celebrity superhero."  
  
"Well what shall we do now?" Starfire asked.  
  
"We watch. Wait a bit, and then when things have cooled down we check  
out the scene for ourselves."  
  
Robin's communicator made a beeping noise and he pulled it out of his  
pocket. "Hey."  
  
"Raven here. The authorities are practically on our front  
doorstep.They want you pretty bad. And that's not all, news just came  
in that an elderly woman at the scene died from heart failure just  
moments ago. Cause of death: traumatization from being hit by a shard  
from the wall that your evil twin blew up. She got knocked right out  
of her wheelchair and even though they rushed her to the ER, she  
didn't make it."  
  
A cold sweat broke out on Robin's forehead. Starfire put a comforting  
hand on his shoulder, unable to say anything. The situation had been  
bad enough before without the added complication of a death.  
  
"Robin, are you there?" The voice on the other end asked.  
  
"Um, yeah. Listen, you didn't tell them that I-"  
  
"Wasn't there? No, you can give us a little more credit than that."  
  
"Good. Don't tell them anything, lie or otherwise. Don't say a thing,  
and definitely don't start a conflict."  
  
"Gotcha."  
  
Robin could now hear sirens in the background, as well as the roar of  
motorboats and the THWOP THWOP THWOP of helicopters. He turned the  
communicator off.  
  
"This is not good," Starfire said mournfully. She and Robin sat down  
on a neardy upraised ledge, an advantageous spot since it made them  
virtually undetectable. Star turned to Robin. "How will we pass the  
time?" It would be quite a few hours before it was dark enough or the  
bank deserted enough for the two teen superheroes to get any real work  
done.  
  
Robin let his head fall back against the brick wall behind him "I  
dunno Star, do you know any jokes?"  
  
"Well, I do have one about three Malfarians who wandered into space  
time continuum without regulation antigrav shielding units."  
  
Robin chuckled. "Never mind. I have a few."  
  
"Ooh, do share"  
  
"OK, A lady and her baby get on a bus. The bus driver looks at the  
lady, and then her baby, and then screams, "AHHHH! That's the ugliest  
child I've ever seen in my life!" The lady then, totally disgusted,  
marches up to the back of the bus to sit down. As she was sitting  
there absolutely furious, a man asks, "Are you ok, dear?" The lady  
replies, "I'm so angry, that bus driver just insulted me." The man  
says, "You go back up there and give that bus driver a piece of your  
mind, and I'll watch your monkey." "  
  
Starfire howled with laughter, partly because it was a funny joke on  
its own merit, and partly because of the humorous inflections that  
Robin had given to the voices of the bus driver, the lady, and the  
other man in his joke.  
  
"That," she managed between guffaws, "was the most humorous tale I  
have ever heard."  
  
"Um, I don't think it was that good."  
  
"Do you have any more?"  
  
Robin smiled. "Well, there's the one about the boy who writes to  
Santa."  
  
And so they spent the better part of four hours telling each other  
jokes and stories, partly to relieve some of the tension that had  
arisen because of the recent events. Below on the streets, the ruckus  
was settling down. Bit by bit.  
  
"Who do you think is impersonating you?" Starfire finally asked,  
shifting her leg to ease a cramp that had suddenly come up.  
  
"We haven't run across any baddies who have those kind of abilities.  
Maybe Gizmo, but its not his style. I think the real question is why.  
And I don't have an answer to either one." The Boy Wonder paused for a  
moment. "Look, they're leaving."  
  
Starfire peeked over the edge. Sure enough, all the media vans were  
leaving. It was almost hard to make them out, given how dark it had  
become. Some of the police also seemed to be packing up.  
  
Robin's mouth quirked up into a half-smile. "OK Star, fly me down. The  
rooftop should be good since the bank has a skylight. I'll take it  
from there."  
  
"I understand." Starfire hopped to her feet and wrapped her arms  
around Robin's waist, making sure she had a good hold on him, and then  
lifting off.  
  
***  
  
I hope you're right about this," Cyborg said, referring to Raven's  
insisting that they not put up any resistance. The police forces had  
just reached the island, and the boats were unloading a seemingly  
endless line of armored troopers. It looked like they were about to  
start a war or something  
  
"So do I." Raven drew her cloak around herself and put her hood over  
her head.  
  
Beast Boy was bus checking all the different screens. "They're  
surrounding our HQ," he reported. Apparently, these boats were the  
latest in government technology, because after they unloaded their  
passengers, they seemed to morph, with huge , monster wheels popping  
out of the side among other changes. They were now something between a  
tank and a Monster Truck, with all the lethality and menace of the  
first and all of the appearance and attitude of the latter.  
  
All of the sudden, a loud crash broke the tense silence. It was coming  
from downstairs, and all three Titans whirled around. Raven's eyes  
narrowed into slits. "They're here."  
  
"Well," said Cyborg, "lets go greet our guests." 


	3. Even more trouble

Robin pulled out a small instrument that seemed to be somewhere between a scalpel and a combat knife. The Boy Wonder thumbed a switch, and the silver six-inch blade began to vibrate with a high-pitched buzzing sound. The glass of the skylight was supposed to be unbreakable. Robin intended to test that.  
  
"What are you planning?" Starfire asked him, poking her head over his shoulder. She had already tried to use a focused energy beam to cut the unbreakable glass. She might as well have been trying to chop wood with a plastic butter knife.  
  
"To get us in there," Robin said. He angled the cutting instrument inward a couple of degrees and cut into the glass. The blade, which was less than a molecule thick in the edge, had virtually no problem cutting through. Robin sliced out a circle, carefully grabbed the edges, and lifted up. The segment was four inches thick and extremely dense, robin staggered at first as he tried to handle the weigh and was quite happy when he could set it aside. "We're in," he said.  
  
Starfire floated to the ground. Robin just jumped, landing in a crouch. The place was thankfully empty, although it was clear the police had been through the place. Robin hoped that there would still be some evidence left behind that he could analyze. He saw Starfire glance over to the left, and his gaze followed hers until he saw what had attracted her attention. He gave a low whistle. There was a gaping hole in the wall, just like on the news  
  
"Oh my," Star murmured.  
  
Robin frowned. Now that he could see the wreckage in person, he could make out something that looked very familiar. The particular type of blast radius and aftermath . . .robin froze, and rushed down to begin turning over the chunks of brick and wall that littered the ground.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"I've got a hunch," Robin said. He tossed away some more chunks and then finally found what he was looking for. It was a red and blue tangle of wires and melted plastic. It came from one of the explosive devices that he had. Anyone who used one the wrong way or without practice would not be able to get anywhere as much bang for their buck. Robin knew this from personal experience, as his explosive disks had often nearly backfired on him when he was still learning how to use them. Whoever had pretended to be him and used one had been very lucky that it hadn't either blown up in their face or taken out the whole building.  
  
This of course begged the obvious question. Where was this mystery pretender getting explosive disks of the exact same make and model of Robin's?  
  
Starfire let a green ball of energy form in her hand to act as a light source and looked around the other side of the bank. Apparently, the police, while having cordoned off the area, had not been able to fly a forensic pathologist or other crime scene expert in, so they were content to just leave things as undisturbed as possible until the experts could get in. For that, both Titans were grateful. The light caught on a small metallic object and kneeled down to get a closer look at it.  
  
"Watcha got there Star?" Robin asked, kneeling down beside her.  
  
"I do not know." Starfire handed the metallic oval to Robin who took a look at it. The initials MF were engraved on it.  
  
Robin put the object in one of the pouches of his utility belt. "I don't know what it is either. I'll wait till I can get some proper equipment and analyze it further."  
  
"OK."  
  
Starfire heard it first, since her alien ears were a bit more sensitive than those of humans. It sounded like the siren on a human police car. Two, no, at least four sirens, and they were coming from every direction. Her eyes widened. "We must leave immediately," she said tersely, grabbing Robin's arm.  
  
"Why, I-" Robin must have heard them too, because, his eyes narrowed underneath the mask. Now, the sirens were clearly audible, and they were impossibly close-the police cars. Robin even thought he heard the familiar sound of a helicopter above.  
  
Suddenly, light flooded through the skylight and the windows, causing Robin and Starfire to shield their eyes. It was all happening so fast that Robin to really try to keep up in his mind.  
  
" Robin and Starfire. You are illegally tampering with a crime scene, and there is a warrant for your arrests, one for grand theft and the other for being an accomplice. Be reasonable and surrender, anything else will be taken as both a sign of guilt and a sign of hostility, in which case my men will open fire."  
  
Robin winced. That was one loud bullhorn. He looked frantically around for a route of escape, which was difficult because he had no idea where the authorities were positioned. He slipped a small capsule about the dimensions of a tic tac into his gloved hand and raised both arms in what looked like the beginnings of a surrender, but instead of staying in the hands-over-head position, he threw the capsule down to the ground in a lightning quick blur of motion. With a small poof, the area around Robin and Starfire became an opaque haze of smoke that even the bright spotlights couldn't penetrate.  
  
"Blow it away," the sergeant commanded. Several policemen flowed out of of the nearest police car and took with them a long, circular tube. They switched it on, and it immediately had the effect of a reverse vacuum cleaner, repelling the air outward with tremendous power. The smoke shield that Robin had created was blown away in no time, but by then it was too late. The two Titans were gone.  
  
***  
  
Raven, Beast Boy, and Cyborg came slowly down the stairs. The sight that greeted them was amazing, in a horrifyingly bizarre sort of way. There were troopers in blue uniforms swarming all over the place.  
  
"Hey, hey," Cyborg protested when a uniformed trooper in a bulky helmet opened the fridge. "What are you doin'?"  
  
The trooper ignored him. He scooped the moldy green and blue food that infested the fridge into a plastic bag marked BIOHAZARD and examined it. When another trooper came over to see, the first one held out a halting hand. "Watch it Bill, this stuff looks dangerous, could be some sort of chemical weapon or explosive substance. No way its food."  
  
Seeing as how it was Starfire's Meat Loaf and Spicy Bubblegum Surprise from last month, Cyborg had to agree with the guy there. Just one spoonful had put Raven and Beast Boy in the infirmary for days. It was when another similarly clad figure began to mess with the Titans' PlaySation 2 that Cyborg lost it.  
  
"OHHH no. You did NOT just touch my PS2. I swear to God ya'll better back off if you don't want a couple hundred decibels of sonic blast in ya face!"  
  
"Cool it," Raven muttered. Cyborg was still simmering though. If they had so much as scratched the paint of that precious game system . . .he didn't think he'd be responsible for his actions.  
  
One of the troopers, obviously the leader, approached the Titans. "Where's Robin?" he asked simply, yet directly.  
  
No one answered, which seemed to irritate the man. "Let me repeat the question, Where is he?!"  
  
No answer.  
  
"Cut the bullcrap, I have neither the time, nor the patience to deal with this. "You WILL tell me or I will have all you arrested for obstruction of justice and as accomplices."  
  
Still no answer, but all three Titans' eyes said the same thing, 'You really don't want to try that.'  
  
The man gave each one a hard glare. It was a glare that had broken many a new recruit and sent many a cadet crying to their mommies, but all of them, especially Raven, met his stare with a rock hard one of their own.  
  
"Your choice," he muttered. Without turning around, he said, "Arrest 'em."  
  
"Now what?" Cyborg asked, itching for a fight."  
  
The corner of Ravens mouth tilted upward. "Now we employ a little self defense."  
  
Cyborg waited until one of the officers began to draw his gun to move. He reached out his right arm and with a barely audible CHA-CLICK it was now a sonic cannon. "Hasta La Vista."  
  
TSEEEEW A bluish beam erupted from the cannon and lifted the officer right off the ground it hit him so hard. With a thud, the guy slammed into the wall.  
  
"Open fire!" someone yelled. The unmistakable sound of machine gun fire resonated throughout the room, and bullets came flying at the Titans, but by then they were prepared. Raven created a telekinetic shield in front of her. (I'm not sure if she can do that, so if she can't, then feel free to call me out on it) Beast Boy turned into the prehistoric triceratops. They might as well have been hitting him with spitballs. Had Cyborg stayed put, the shells would have simply bounced off of his metal armor most likely, but Cyborg did not stay put. He took out the nearest officer with a shove that send him crashing through the door. The one behind that one raised his Glock .20 and fired, but the ricochet bounced of off Cyborg's armor and hit the shooter square in the chest.  
  
Cyborg frowned. Shouldn't there be blood?  
  
"Bulletproof armor you idiot," Beast Boy yelled as if he'd read Cyborg's mind. It was almost comical watching this fierce looking green dinosaur talk, one was in fact reminded of a certain character on a kids television show called Barney. It stopped being comical when the same triceratops charged.  
  
WHAM! Three of the invading troopers went flying like bowling bins after a strike. Beast Boy swung his Triceratops tail to take care of two more troopers who hadn't the cranial capacity to figure out that bullets from a handgun didn't do jack to a dinosaur like this one.  
  
Raven closed her eyes and gathered her dark telekinetic energy. Then she grabbed the guns out of four troopers' hands with her mind and turned them around on their original owners. Then she fired.  
  
BLAM BLAM BLAM  
  
THUD THUD THUD. All three hit the ground, out like a light.  
  
Bulletproof armor was nice, but at that range, it wasn't as effective, especially if one happened to be shot in the weak spots of his armor. It would be by no means lethal, but it would sure hurt-after you woke up, that is.  
  
Raven gathered her cloak around herself. She'd heard at least one of the troopers radio for reinforcements, and there were more and more gun-toting troopers swarming in by the minute. "Cyborg, Beast Boy, we must go."  
  
Neither one looked to happy about it, but they complied. Cyclops finished tossing a guy out of the window, and then blasted a hole in the ceiling with his sonic cannon. Starfire would not be happy with him, she threw a fit when anyone so much as littered, but it was the fastest means of escape. He activated the rocket thrusters in his boots and flew up through the hole in the ceiling. Beast boy turned into a Pterodactyl, and followed suit. Raven was the last to go.  
  
Luckily, there were no helicopters in the air, they had all apparently landed. The trek across the water and onto the mainland wouldn't be too hard, but what to do after that was the million dollar question.  
  
Raven sighed and floated up into the air, following Cyborg and Beast Boy. Somehow, she didn't think the day would get any better.  
  
A/N Hey, third chapter here. Tell me what you think, and those of you who have reviewed, thank you. Keep 'em comin. Plot suggestions welcome. 


	4. Crazy Chases

A/N OK, I know that my last chappie wasn't that good, but I'll try to make this one better, OK? Also, special thanks to kid titan for giving me an idea for this chapter.  
  
"Now what will we do?" asked Starfire, not even caring that it was fifth or six time she'd asked him that.  
  
"I'm thinking," Robin muttered. He and Starfire were on the roof now, crouched in one of the few places that wasn't lit bright as day by police searchlights. Down on the ground, there was just as much activity as there had been during the day. All the reporters and news vans that had taken a slight rest were back with a vengeance in the wake of this new occurrence. "OK," he said, "On the count of three, One, two, three, GO."  
  
Now this was a god plan of course, after all, what else could Robin do? Unfortunately, the best laid plans have a bad habit of running into unexpected . . . problems.  
  
This problem came in the form of a crack in the ground, which caught Starfire's foot and caused her to unceremoniously fall to the ground.  
  
That was when they were discovered. One of the media helicopters happened to spot them, and promptly, the reporters inside began to yell and point their fingers. The police down below had no idea what in the world those crazy reporters were doing. But even this didn't last long, because soon enough, the reporter inside managed to get hold of a decent radio, and through all of her jabbering, the police were able to make out one fact. Robin and Starfire were on the roof.  
  
Meanwhile, Starfire was desperately trying to pull her foot free-it had gotten wedged in the crack and was stubbornly refusing to come loose.  
  
"Just blast it free," Robin commanded, all businesslike now. Starfire nodded and powered up her left hand. She fired a clear, precise energy beam that blasted away at the chunks of cement imprisoning her foot. The instant she tried to put weight on it, spikes of pain erupted up her leg so she simply floated in the air.  
  
For the second time that day, bright police spotlights blinded her as they shined right in her face. "No more games," said the man in charge. "You either cooperate or we start shooting." Robin looked over at Star and his eyes widened through the mask. There was a red dot on her head, right between her eyes in fact. The telltale indication of the laser targeting devices built into some rifles. Suddenly, a dozen more identical dots appeared on her Body. Robin had no doubt he was being similarly targeted.  
  
He palmed a freeze disc, but didn't use it. He could tell that there were dozens of trigger happy cops all around him who were just waiting for an excuse to shoot, and as fast as he was, he wasn't about risk his, an especially Starfire's life on it.  
  
Starfire turned to him and he gave his head a short shake. In moments, a SWAT team was on the roof. Two burly men forcibly held Robin still even though he wasn't struggling while a third attached two sets of handcuffs to his wrist. The rest of the team had their rifles trained on him, ready to fire if anything went wrong. Once Robin was secure, they did the same procedure with Starfire and then half hauled half tossed the two into a helicopter, which transported them to the ground so they could be placed into a secure transport van. They were thrown in the back, and then the door was locked and bolted, making the van's built in holding cell pitch black. There were no seats, and Robin and Starfire found themselves lying on the cold floor side by side.  
  
"Why did you not try to escape?" Starfire finally asked when the van started moving. The utter lack of seatbelts, or even seats made for a very bumpy ride.  
  
Robin could tell she was trying to keep the fear out of her voice. "Because," he said, "I didn't want to risk it, not with the possibility of you getting hurt."  
  
Starfire was silent for a moment, then a bump in the road caused the entire vehicle to shudder. Starfire found herself hurled into the front, where she ran into an unexpected human cushion.  
  
"Oomph," gasped Robin. Starfire's knee had rammed him right in the gut.  
  
"Oh Robin, I am so sorry," Starfire hastily apologized. "Did I hurt you?"  
  
"It'll be alright." Robin shifted into a sitting position. "I wonder how Cyborg and Raven and Beast Boy are doing," he murmured, half to himself. This situation had escalated to unbelievable proportions in a matter of hours, and he couldn't let I get any worse. They had to stop it now. "Starfire," he said, "I want you to melt your handcuffs, OK, we need to get free. Now."  
  
Starfire happily complied. As she blasted away the restraints, the energy from her hands gave everything in the 'room' a greenish tinge. When her hands were finally free, she put them together and summoned just enough energy to light the entire place up. "Do you need me to-"  
  
"No need," Robin cut in. He held up his hands, holding both sets of handcuffs dangling from his left hand. "Star, I want you to burn a hole through the roof, OK. Then I'll need you to fly us out as fast as you can."  
  
It was a hastily hatched plan, but they had no choice. Starfire stretched out her hand and let the energy flow.  
  
***  
  
In the police car behind the PTV, Prisoner Transport Vehicle, a certain Sergeant Morris was watching the scene closely. So was every other officer in the twelve cars that were escorting the PTV back to a more secure facility. They finally had Robin, that was good, but it was right here at this stage that things tended to go wrong.  
  
He hoped that this would be the exception. Turning on his radio, he contacted the PTV driver. How is everything going?" he asked.  
  
"Fine so far. They're bein' pretty quiet back there."  
  
For some reason, this scared Morris even more than the idea that they were making a ruckus. Keep alert," was all Morris could think to say. Thankfully, there weren't that many media crews to haggle with as they sped down the road, most of them were busy reporting once again at the scene of the crime.  
  
Morris's cell phone rang. Odd, usually if someone wanted to contact him, they would use the radio in his car. "Hello?"  
  
"Bad news."  
  
It was the chief, and from his tone of voice, Morris could guess that whatever it was, it was pretty bad. "What?"  
  
A couple of our special ops teams just reported back from the Titans' Headquarters. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but somehow, a conflict started with three of the Titans."  
  
"I can guess who came out on top in that fight."  
  
"Dozens of injuries to our own guys. We secured the building, but the Titans got away. I'm in the process of getting an APB out on 'em. You have the Robin situation under control, right."  
  
How ironic that at that moment, Sgt. Morris would lose any semblance of control he had over the situation. He could only watch with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach as a green bolt of energy sliced through the roof of the PTV from the inside.  
  
"What's going on?" another officer asked over the intercom.  
  
Morris squinted. Then he swore once he realized what was going on. He turned his radio on, grabbing the mike. "Stop the PTV," he yelled. "Stop it right now!"  
  
No answer from the PTV driver.  
  
"Stop the vehicle," Morris yelled again, still no answer. Was the driver unconscious? Had the Titans killed him?  
  
They were on the freeway now, and Morris found himself having to put more and more speed into the car. With a serene gracefulness that utterly belied the situation, Starfire floated up out of the hole she'd created with Robin in her arms. If there had been any doubt that the two had gotten free, it was gone now. Morris pounded the dashboard with his fist. He was such an idiot! He should have known better than to simply handcuff criminals of that kind of caliber like they were petty bank robbers or something.  
  
"Sir, they're loose!"  
  
"I know, I know. Whatever you do, just hold your-"  
  
A shot rang out.  
  
"Fire."  
  
Spurred by whoever had fired the first shot, the other officers began to shoot at Robin and Starfire. Starfire ducked at Robin's warning, and a hailstorm of bullets chewed through the air above her head. Robin's fist tightened around the freeze disc in his hand. Now was the perfect time to use it.  
  
Morris saw The Boy Wonder prepare to throw an object that looked to be nothing more than a small Frisbee. Unlike every other officer, he knew what it was. Like every other officer, he was powerless to do anything about it.  
  
Robin threw the disc. Immediately upon contact with the ground, the device exploded. The first car to come in contact with the blossoming wave of freezing cold was frozen over completely. It skidded off road and crashed into a guardrail. A sheet of inch thick ice spread outward in all directions. Morris slammed on the brakes . . .and was reeducated a little about the laws of motion. On a frictionless surface, the wheels of a car can stop turning all they want to, but if the car is traveling at a high velocity, its pretty much going to keep going. Morris tried to turn the wheel but all he got for his troubles was to send the car into a tailspin. A bone jarring impact Sent Morris's head slamming into the headrest. He realized that he'd just crashed into another squad car, which had been forced off road unfortunately. Just another reason that these Teen Titans were not to be taken lightly.  
  
Finally, Morris reached normal road again, and it didn't look like Robin would be throwing any more of those hell spawned freeze discs now that it didn't look like anyone was shooting at him and his friend.  
  
"Is it safe to get up?" Starfire asked Robin. They'd both ducked flat to on the roof of the car to keep from being hit or blown off by wind resistance.  
  
Robin nodded and stood up slowly. Making sure to keep low.  
  
"You have something on your chest," said Starfire.  
  
"What?"  
  
Starfire pointed at the Robin insignia on robin's chest. He looked down and his blood ran cold. One of those laser-targeting dots, just like before at the bank, was fixed on his chest. He looked at the pursuing squad cars. All except for one or two, they were two busy trying to keep from crashing on the mini-ice field to be aiming at him. No one in the two cars that had passed the ice field was aiming anything at him either.  
  
Then who? Robin looked up. The helicopters. They must have had snipers on him all this time. He'd just come to his conclusion when the sniper fired. And he was right on target.  
  
Robin jerked, which was the first indication to Starfire that something was wrong. The movement was so unnatural that it couldn't be good. Starfire watched in horror as Robin slumped onto the hard surface, giving her a clear view of the blood seeping down his chest.  
  
Morris had watched this whole thing in confusion, but it didn't take him long to figure out what had happened. Robin had been shot, he recognized the signs. But who had shot him?  
  
The answer wasn't hard to come by. Who else but those arrogant helicopter snipers? It seemed like the situation was defused now, but Morris doubted that their problems were over just like that.  
  
Starfire rose slowly, her heart pounding. Robin wasn't dead . . .yet, thanks to the injury-resistant design of his costume, but he was out for the count. Robin. her Robin, had been shot. She felt an emotion that she almost never experienced. She'd experienced it when she discovered her sister Blackfire's treachery and it was back now. She was angry. And she liked it. She gingerly picked Robin up in her arms and took to the sky. Blood was pounding in her ears, she couldn't think about anything except for how her Robin had been hurt by these sorely mistaken people, and how she would show them jus how mistaken they had been.  
  
It was easy to figure out who had been responsible for this. The sniper was still perched on the helicopters ledge, shooting at them no less even as they approached. It took one beam of energy to quell the attack. She fired a controlled burst that knocked the rifle right out of the sniper's hands. She then aimed down at the road below and fired another controlled burst, the only difference being that she sustained this one for a bit longer. Shards of concrete went flying, and when the smoke cleared, there was a long, jagged trench that cut through the road. Luckily for the squad cars, she didn't rupture an gas mains, although she set at least five water mains off.  
  
As the water from the ruptured mains sprayed high into the air, only to come trickling down onto his windshield, Morris promised himself two things. One, that he would retire, and two, that he would take nice, large aspirin when he got home.  
  
***  
  
These disguises you thought up are really lame," Beast boy complained. It was the middle of the night and Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy were in a dark alley. Beast Boy was holding up the dirty brown garment that Raven had given to him. Cyborg held an identical garment.  
  
Raven looked coldly at him. "Stop your pathetic whining, the last thing we need right now is to be recognized and so you will wear it, at least for now." Even through her tough words, Beast Boy could sense her fatigue. He and Cyborg were no better off. First Robin had gotten framed, then the Titans had been forced from their own clubhouse after a knock down drag out fight with the police-and Robin and Starfire had yet to report back. It was a bad day, even for a Monday.  
  
Sighing, Beast Boy put on the smelly, ragged cloak and wrapped it around himself. "What now?" he asked Raven.  
  
Raven put her hood on. "I do not know."  
  
Cyborg frowned. "Wait a minute you guys. My sensors are picking up something." Cyborg's eyebrow was narrowed in suspicion. "There's somebody right over . . .there!"  
  
Beast Boy and Raven turned their heads to where Cyborg was pointing. Up. Looking down at them was a figure clad in a black and blue bodysuit. He wore a mask that resembled Robin's in that it was strapless and reduced he eyes to white orbs. He wore an amused smirk.  
  
"Found me huh. Not bad."  
  
Raven frowned. This guy seemed familiar . . .  
  
It was Cyborg who realized it first. "You're-you're Nightwing," he blurted out.  
  
"Yep." Nightwing hopped off of the streetlamp that he'd been balancing on, did an acrobatic flip, and landed gracefully in a crouch to cushion the impact. He stood to his full height. "And lemme guess. Cyborg, Beast, and Raven."  
  
"Beast Boy," the green-skinned animorph corrected.  
  
"Beast Boy then. Listen, I know of a place where you guys can hide out."  
  
"From the police?" Raven asked.  
  
Nightwing nodded. "Yeah, I know, not a very superhero thing of me to do, but Tim would never do anything like that, and if you guys are being falsely accused, I'm not going to just sit by and do nothing."  
  
Ravens eyes narrowed. "How do we know that you're really Nightwing?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"It was a metamorph who got us into this mess in the first place. If he or she could impersonate Robin, who's to say that they couldn't impersonate you as well and lure us into a trap," Cyborg explained.  
  
Nightwing nodded. "Good point. I have an idea though, ask me any question you can think of that only I would know the answer to."  
  
"Tough criteria said Cyborg. He thought for a moment and then said. "What's Robin's favorite video game?"  
  
"Crazy Taxi 2."  
  
Raven turned to Cyborg. "Is he right?"  
  
"He's right."  
  
AN: Hey, don't forget to read and review, even if you don't like it, because you can always tell me how to improve my fic. 


	5. Prelude to a storm

"This is your big hideout?" Cyborg asked dubiously as the group walked into the large, yet abandoned building. There were a few rats running around here and there, but tat was it.  
  
"Best I could do on short term, kid. I didn't exactly have time to get you guys a five star hotel."  
  
"It's defensible enough," Raven mused, looking around. The old movie theater was located in a dark back alley, and had several makeshift escape routes if necessary, she'd observed. What worried her most was Starfire and Robin, they had yet to report in, and she was unable to get a signal through, which either meant that the two were outside the seventy-mile range, or their communicator had somehow been damaged. Neither prospect was a good one.  
  
Beast Boy flew in, he'd just been scouting out the area in his osprey form. He perched on what had used to be a concessions stand and promptly changed back into his regular self. "Coast is clear," he said, "No cops or anything for a good couple of miles. Funny though there's some huge accident scene or something on the freeway-I don't know what it is, but its causing almost all f the available police and stuff to go over there. Hope there weren't any deaths or anything." The instant that Beast Boy stopped talking, a low, but loud rumble came from his stomach.  
  
"I take it you are hungry," said Raven.  
  
"Starving."  
  
"Yeah, me too," said Cyborg. "Why don't you turn into some fried chicken or something. I sure could go for some right about now."  
  
"Not funny dude, not funny."  
  
Nightwing cleared his throat. "Raven, you said you were going to try to contact Starfire and Robin. Any luck?"  
  
Raven shook hr head. "No they must be-"  
  
The communicator went off just then, and Raven turned to the concession stand where she'd left it. Beast Boy, who was already there, picked the comm device up. "Got it." He flipped it on. "Robin?"  
  
"Starfire," said the Tamaranian girl on the other end. She sounded very weary, and had possibly been crying.  
  
"Yo Star, is everything cool over there?" asked Cyborg.  
  
"He's asking if things are all right," supplied Raven, knowing that starfire was no expert on human slang."  
  
"No, they are not. Robin has been shot and I-"  
  
"Wait, back up. You say Robin as shot?" asked Beast Boy.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"How? Where'd he get shot? "  
  
"It is a long story. Right now I just need to know where you guys are. The Tower has aircraft and boats buzzing around it like Fagorian red bees around a hive."  
  
"That too is a long story," said Raven. She took the communicator from Beast Boy and flicked up a switch with her thumb, revealing a keypad. She spoke while pressing buttons. "I'm sending our coordinates over a secure connection. You do know how read 'em, right."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
***  
  
Starfire frowned when she felt a drop of rain strike her on the back as she zoomed high above the city. A second drop hit her forehead and ran down to her left. Robin too had been hit by the raindrops, but he of course could not notice it being unconscious and possibly about to die.  
  
Suddenly, a torrent of rain came slamming down onto the city, drenching both Star and Robin. To clear her vision somewhat, Starfire generated a crackling field of energy around herself and her passenger, Robin. It wasn't as spectacular as it could have been since a great deal of he energy had to be diverted to keep both her and the limp teammate in her arms in the air. She looked again at the screen of her Teen Titans official communicator. She was getting close, although she could not imagine what had led the other Titans to wander into this part of town. She looked down at Robin. "Hold on," she whispered even though she knew he couldn't hear her. "We're almost there."  
  
Two and a half minutes later, a blur of green energy burst through the door of the abandoned theater. Starfire stopped abruptly, crouching as beads of sweat mixed with rainwater poured down her face. She was thoroughly chilled and equally drenched. Exhaustion was also settling in, much to her displeasure. Her main concern though was Robin. He was growing paler and paler and she could barely get a pulse.  
  
She barely registered the other titans plus nightwing rushing over. "Robin, is he OK?" she asked weakly.  
  
Raven telekinetically lifted the Boy Wonder into the air. "Where as he hit? Wait, never mind." She fought back a gasp when she saw the unsightly hole in the center of Robin's R insignia.  
  
He let Robin float down in front of her at about waist level so it was like he was lying on an invisible bed. It was hard to get a good psychokinetic grasp on the bullet, but the grim-faced young Titan, managed, gently easing the bullet out of the wound. Beast Boy, who was watching winced as the nasty little projectile floated in the air, trailing blood (among other things) out of the wound. Raven dropped it onto the concession stand and peered at the wound. She could telekinetically aid the healing, but even now Robin might be near brain death. They would need a miracle.  
  
"Cyborg," she called.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What do you know about medical procedures?"  
  
"A lot, I picked up a ton of medical information when I was first getting my cybernetic augmentations. Why, is Robin hurt bad?"  
  
"Very bad. Take a look at him." Raven stepped aside so that her huge fellow titan could have room to operate. Cyborg held up his right and suddenly, the fist transformed into the Swiss Army knife of medical tools. Scalpels, needles, tubes, etc.  
  
Starfire's eyes went wide. "Don't hurt him," she nearly yelled. Cyborg looked at her confused until he realized that to her, his array of medical instruments must look like weapons.  
  
"Relax," he said, 'these are for patching him up.  
  
Starfire let out a deep breath. "Yes, of course, um, sorry."  
  
"So Star, feel like telling us what happened?" asked Raven.  
  
***  
  
Sgt. Morris was glad that that the police were able to keep the media relatively at bay-for now. The scene was a disaster, with several homes without water or electricity resulting from the brief skirmish they'd had with Starfire and Robin.  
  
Despite the bad rep they were getting, Morris had to admire the fact that even when in battle, the titans had spared the lives of numerous officers time and time again, eve when those same officers were shooting at them. They hadn't seemed to be willing to kill anyone either at the attack on their headquarters or the clash with police forces on the freeway. There were no police casualties as of yet, and he could only hope that that remained the case throughout the whole affair.  
  
"Hey Mo."  
  
Morris turned around to see fellow officer Richard Weston approaching him. He gave the best semblance of a grin that he could manage in his present mood. "Hey Rick."  
  
Richard walked over. He was a large man, dwarfing even Morris, who was no shorty himself. Richard had been a Navy SEAL until an injury to his chest had hampered his breathing, severely cutting down his lung capacity. He could barely run a mile without having to stop for breath. Not to say that the guy was unfit to be a policeman or anything-he could hold his own with the best of them. "You're lucky man," he said. "My squad car got totaled. Yours came out pretty good except for these stains."  
  
"Yeah. We're all lucky."  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, the whole force came out without any deaths."  
  
"Larry's arm is broken pretty bad."  
  
"But that's nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Like I said, we're just lucky that they decided to hold back."  
  
"The Titans?" Richard snorted. "They're still bad enough in my book. And don't forget about Robin, he was perfectly willing to kill those bankers for a little money. Heck, a lady died in there."  
  
Morris sighed. "Well how's the sniper?"  
  
Starfire took one parting shot at him before she flew off. The guy's banged up pretty bad, and I hear he suffered some damage in his uh, groin. The guy's gonna need a special kind of operation for that."  
  
A young policeman ran up to Morris just then. "Sergeant," he said, "One of the EMS workers sent me to tell you that they can't get the driver's door open."  
  
"Driver's door?"  
  
"To the PTV sir. The windows are unbreakable and opaque, so we don't even know if he's alive since we can't see in"  
  
Morris suddenly remembered the driver, who for some reason had not responded to specific radio request to stop the vehicle.  
  
The explosion knocked everyone within a good twenty-yard radius to the ground. Morris barely had time to register that something had gone BOOM when a flash of heat engulfed him. A piece of broken glass fell on the ground next to his face. It wasn't hard to figure that the windows had been blown out.  
  
The magnitude hit him just then as he saw the bodies of several emergency workers sprawled over the pavement. The fire on the PTV lit up the scene brighter than day. Bright enough to tell that everyone close to the PTV when the bomb went off had died a horrible death. It made no sense. Why would there be a bomb in there? Unless the Teen Titans had put it there.  
  
Coughing, Morris rose to his feet, helped up by Richard. The young officer who had been there was unconscious. The PTV itself was a total wreck.  
  
Richard looked at him. "Decided to hold back huh." 


	6. Taking back the Tower

Megan Fraud regretted that she could not have been there to witness the effects of the little goodie she'd planted in the PTV, but watching it on TV was a nice consolation prize. The homemade explosive had completely destroyed the armored vehicle and no doubt killed at least a couple of rescue workers and police officers. The police had a puzzle on their hands, no doubt about that. Why did the PTV keep going after it had been ordered to stop? Why were the doors locked? Why was there a bomb inside? These questions had an answer, but no one would figure out the right one. Instead, like these gung-ho reporters that wasted screen space with their empty predictions and guesses, they would blame Robin, and no doubt the rest of the Teen Titans for everything. Just like she wanted them to.  
  
Why did the PTV keep going despite orders to stop? Because the real PTV driver was dead in a dumpster somewhere and the one who had been driving was Megan herself, who taken on his appearance. She had locked the doors and welded them shut with one of Robin's many devices, and then planted her bomb right in the seat. If the PTV where still in one piece, one would be able to see the large hole in its floor where Megan had gotten out.  
  
She reached for the remote and clicked the power button, causing the television images to abruptly die out. As would the Titans, she promised herself. As would the Titans.  
  
***  
  
It was a regenerative catalyst, at least that's what the label said. Cyborg took a look at the small vial and opened it. Inside was a dark, opaque liquid. He looked down at Robin. The bullet was gone, but Robin had still lost a lot of blood, among other equally serious medical problems the guy was facing. The regenerative had come from Robin's utility belt. Cyborg would never have thought to use it were it not for the flashback to a certain conversation he and Robin had shared long ago. Robin had said something about developing a chemical that could exponentially increase the cellular regeneration of any given organism. Scientific jargon for healing.  
  
Cyborg slid the vial into the canister cradle of his turbo-syringe and carefully infected the stuff into Robin's arm. If he used the whole thing, it could heal Robin completely, but he would die anyway. Why? Because the solution needed energy to work effectively, and where else to derive its energy than from its host? In most cases, the loss of energy was hardly noticeable, but the dosage required for such an injury as Robin had would drain him so dry that his body functions would just stop. No, Robin needed a smaller dose, so at least it would buy him time, even if it couldn't completely heal the wound.  
  
Cyborg injected about seven mL and then withdrew the syringe. He had to face the fact that without the advanced medical equipment they had back at the Tower, Robin would die.  
  
He looked over at Starfire, who was huddled in a corner, crying. At least she had been crying. Now she was just staring blankly at Robin, all out of tears.  
  
Raven and Beast Boy were sitting down on a makeshift bench of pipes and boards at the other end of the expanse. Cyborg couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. He never would have thought that Raven would voluntarily say anything more than, 'You're so immature,' to the resident green skinned changeling. He supposed tense situations had a way of changing things.  
  
Cyborg cleared his throat, causing Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy to look up. Nightwing peeked his head around the doorframe that connected the two main underground cells.  
  
Starfire raised her head. "What is it?"  
  
"Robin," said Cyborg slowly, "is going to die unless we get him to the Tower, Soon."  
  
"But its got police swarming all over the place," said Beast Boy. "Or have you forgotten? And why can't you just fix him up here?"  
  
"I don't have the equipment I need," Cyborg said calmly. "And no, I haven't forgotten about all the S.W.AT. teams. To put it simply, we're just going to have to remove them.  
  
Beast Boy's mouth dropped to comical proportions. Raven stared grimly at Cyborg. "That will be difficult, perhaps impossible."  
  
Starfire rose to her feet and eyed Cyborg. "You are sure it is necessary?"  
  
"Dead sure."  
  
"Then we will have to do it." Starfire looked purposely at Raven and Beast Boy, and then her eyes burst into a bright, luminescent green as she levitated a few feet off the ground.  
  
***  
  
"Its only a matter of time Morris," said Richard. "They're bound to show up."  
  
"What gives you that idea? They could plausibly escape detection for months, even years in a city this large and with their powers to help." Morris sighed and picked up the worn, blue pencil next to his notepad, which he had divided up into five sections, one for every Titan. The poor light in the main office was hard to work with, but he managed anyway.  
  
Under Robin, he put the word presumed in front of the word dead. Everyone thought he must have died, the sniper swore by it. But Morris still wasn't sure. Such assumptions had had a habit of letting him down in the past.  
  
Richard, who was sitting next to him peeked over. "Whatcha got there?"  
  
Morris held the notebook page up to the light so he could show it more clearly. "I've been researching the Titans online, I'm just compiling information on them. Makes them easier to deal with if we know a lot about them."  
  
Richard nodded. "Makes sense. Can I see it?"  
  
"Sure." Morris slid the notebook over to Richard.  
  
Robin: No actual superhuman abilities. Wide range of weapons and other high- tech equipment. Footage analysis suggests that he is trained in several different martial arts disciplines. Extremely agile and athletic. Former protégé of Batman. Presumed dead.  
  
Starfire: Origin unknown. Has ability of high speed flight and varied energy projection. Limits unknown.  
  
Cyborg: Was severely injured in an accident. Gained cybernetic augmentations. Possesses superhuman stength. Limits unknown. Possesses several other various devices, including Sonic Cannon, which can emit high decibel sonic blasts.  
  
Raven: Origin unknown. Known Powers: Versatile psychokinesis, precise enough to halt, perhaps even change trajectory of bullets or other high velocity prokectiles.  
  
Beast Boy: Metamorph. Has the ability of cellular reconfiguration. So far, seems to be limited to changing into animals while retaining distinctly green pigmentation. Can change into prehistoric animal species. Perhaps able to morph into alien animals. Origin: Unknown.  
  
"You misspelled 'projectiles'," said Richard, ever the stickler. "This is good though."  
  
"Yeah. I'll have a more analytical version of this up and running on our database. I've also been obtaining transcripts of interviews with people who have fought the Titans before. This of course includes members of our own S.W.A.T. teams, but villains as well."  
  
"Like who?"  
  
Morris looked through some more of his papers. "Lets see here, we have some cryptic, yet useful info from the HIVE. We have the video footage of their confrontation with the Titans. Some other interrogation transcripts, but its mostly with small time robbers that the Titans have put away over time."  
  
Richard cut him off with a chuckle. "Boy, its like you want to become our overnight resident expert on the Teen Titans."  
  
"We all should be. We won't survive another head to head battle, at least not without some serious consequences. We need to analyze them, try to find their strengths and weaknesses."  
  
"Yeah, especially since they stopped caring about killing people."  
  
Morris gave his trademark lopsided frown. "Especially since then," he agreed.  
  
Their cell phones went off at the same time. Morris knew even before taking his out that the Titans were on the move again. He stifled a yawn. It was early morning now, and he hadn't gotten much sleep at all.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Both Morris and Richard got the same story from their respective superiors. There was a large explosion in the sea about a mile west of the Teen Titans Tower. All officers not already on a different official task were to report. It was unorthodox, but Morris figured they had to be when dealing with an unorthodox problem such as this.  
  
Morris grabbed his secondary sidearm, the Glock .20 and tossed Richard one of the custom made handguns that he favored so much. Twenty minutes later, both had their lightweight Kevlar weave body armor on and specialized helmets with built in communications and night vision specs. The department's garage was almost empty because most of the vehicles had already been taken. Thankfully, there was a squad car left, which they managed to use.  
  
"Twenty bucks says those Titans are behind it," said Richard as they sped down the street, sirens blaring.  
  
"You won't find any argument from me," said Morris. "Although I have no idea why they would do such a thing. What could they hope to gain by blowing up an empty boat in the middle of the water?"  
  
The answer came to him about ten minutes later, when they arrived at the harbor.  
  
By then, it was too late.  
  
***  
  
"We'll create a diversion, said Cyborg, pointing to the 3-D holographic projection of the Tower and surrounding geography that was being emitted from the projector in his right arm. His robotic finger came to rest on a coordinate that lay roughly a mile out from the main island. "An explosion perhaps. It doesn't really matter, as long as we can draw the majority of their forces away from the Tower. We should probably set off similar diversions at intervals farther and farther away from the Tower, to buy us some time."  
  
Nightwing studied the projection. "Leave that to me," he said. At Raven's questioning look, he continued, "I have a pretty nice speedboat. It shouldn't be too much of a problem to sneak past whatever hasty sentry they've managed to scramble together. As for explosions, I've got a few flares that might do the trick. Torpedoes too, if it's the realistic path you gotta take."  
  
"Uh, yeah, you take care of that," said Cyborg. He turned to the rest of his teammates. "As soon as Nightwing sets off the second flare-"  
  
"Explosion," corrected Nighting. "I'll be using T-4 rockets, you should be able to hear and see the bang for miles."  
  
"Explosion then." Cyborg was rather irritated at Nightwing's lack of seriousness, but he managed to keep that impulse under control. "Whatever. As soon as Nightwing sets off the second explosion, we move. It'll need to be fast, since we don't have much time until daylight."  
  
"More likely than not, we're going to have a fight on our hands," said Raven. She removed her hood and circled around to get a better look at the hologram. "We try our best not to kill anybody, because sooner or later, we need to prove our innocence and having casualties on our heads won't help our case."  
  
"Robin's life is the most important thing though," said Starfire. "If it comes down to a choice between taking Robin's life or the enemy's, there is no contest in my mind." She said this with such conviction that no one in the room said anything for a moment. She went on. "I saw him shot down, just like that. He was not threatening the lives of those policemen, yet for some reason they saw fit to kill him."  
  
"Robin's not dead," Beast Boy reminded her.  
  
"They intended for him to be," Sarfire retorted angrily. "That was a fatal shot, let us not pretend otherwise." The tears were back now, and Starfire hastily made an attempt to wipe them away.  
  
Cyborg didn't know what to say to that. He'd never seen this side of Starfire before. This angry, almost passionately so, girl. Tense situations had a way of changing things indeed, so it seemed.  
  
He reached to his arm and clicked off the projector. "Well then, lets move."  
  
***  
  
"That's what I call a Big Bang," muttered Richard as he, Morris, and several other officers watched the recorded footage of the explosion. The speakers had almost shorted out from the shockwave of sound that it had produced.  
  
The woman who was showing them the video, a middle aged, yet quite attractive woman with stylishly graying hair and an entirely black outfit, turned the monitor off. "Hopefully, you all caught what it was that I did in this."  
  
Morris eyed the Director. "It's kind of hard to tell given how dark it is, but there seems to be a ripple in the nearby water right before the explosion."  
  
She gave him an appraising look. "Very good. Closer analysis shows that that ripple is most likely caused by an underwater projectile. Conclusion: someone set out a boat on the water and then launched a torpedo of some sort at it."  
  
"It's the act of a crazed person, the arbitrary and senseless destruction of a boat," said a cultured, British voice from behind Morris somewhere.  
  
"Perhaps," the Madame Director said. "Perhaps not. "Knowing this, you will now be boarding a patrol boat to assist in the investigation of-"  
  
BANG . . . WHOOOSHHHHHHHH!  
  
Morris blinked. Since they were located outside, it was easy to see the bright orange glow against the early morning sky. That and sound . . .it was identical to the first explosion, just a little farther off.  
  
The Director, whose head had swiveled back suddenly at the explosion turned back to the group assembled before her. "You'd better hurry," she said.  
  
***  
  
"There!" whispered Beast Boy. "That was the second explosion.  
  
"I see a good many boats heading out there," said Raven.  
  
"Good," Cyborg muttered. "Now for phase two. I'll just tap a few buttons on this here keypad in my arm and . . . there we go. There was a brief spark of light, but that was it.  
  
"Ummm, what did you do exactly?" asked Beast Boy. "I wasn't really paying attention when you explained it."  
  
"It was a condensed Electro-Magnetic Pulse," Cyborg explained hastily. "It shuts down anything electronically operated, which is why I needed to fiddle around with all of your communicators and electronic equipment, to make modifications that would shield it from the effects of the EMP."  
  
"So all of their electronic systems are worthless," summarized Starfire. She was carrying Robin, so she was constantly shifting her weight to compensate for his own added weight.  
  
"Exactly." Cyborg checked the chronometer in his forearm. "Time is of the essence people, we have to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible."  
  
***  
  
"That's odd," said the patrol boat driver. He tried to start the vehicle again, but it did the same thing it had before. Absolutely nothing. "Dang thing must be busted again."  
  
"Perhaps you should radio for another boat," someone said.  
  
"Yeah. Uh, lets see here." The unusually short driver picked up the mike and depressed the broadcast switch. "104 to 5, we have a sitch here, the patrol boat doesn't seem to be-. Oh, crap." He disgustedly tossed away the mike, which did not work either.  
  
Morris looked around. The hum of boat engines had stopped. The light from the powerful search beams were no longer present, as if they had shorted out.  
  
He took his handheld mini-computer out of his pocket, testing the theory that was beginning to form in his mind. He pressed the 'on' button.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
OK, now here's where I extend a warm 'thank you' to all you wonderful people who have reviewed. Thank you:  
  
Kim, Oorta Dragoon, Apoctawizzit DOOM, kid titan, DBZ Chick 1, TriforceofWisdom, erin 11, Chain2, rammbo, Brat Monkee, SuNsHiNe10, DragonBlond, jillian4, Lenne's*Spirit, Sonic-Fan, Sk8terKittygirl, Pucca 1, Pisces Panda, and Arkady627, and anyone else who I might have accidentally left out. 


	7. Recovery

Its ingenius, thought Morris to himself. Yet how simple. Some kind of pulse wave that knocks out electronics. It shuts down communication. It shuts down transportation. It makes it so that no one can move, communicate, nothing. It practically incapacitates us.  
  
He looked around him in despair. The scene was quite humiliating, at least for a member of the police force. Boats weren't running. People were yelling into cell phones and walkie talkies, and then swearing at the fact that their previously functional devices no longer worked. Searchlights weren't shining anymore, making the entire area a lot darker.  
  
"They're probably behind this too," said Richard.  
  
"Probably."  
  
"Why though?"  
  
Morris chuckled. "Well isn't it obvious. They want their Tower back. They drew the majority of our forces out to investigate these explosions, and then knocked out most of our equipment, so our people back at the Tower couldn't get reinforcements.  
  
Richard gulped. Morris was right, the forces that were back inside the Titans Tower were no doubt suffering from the electronic shortage that all the other forces within a mile+ radius were. The teams inside the Tower were mostly special operations forces and scientists. The scientists wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight against the Titans, and the SpecOps' equipment was almost completely electronic. Their firearms, their other weapons, their communications, their body armor . . .they too, would be helpless.  
  
It was not a pretty thought  
  
It was not that difficult for the Titans to reach the island, especially with all of the Coast Guard's radar and such incapacitated. Of course, this didn't mean that they would be able to get to the Tower without a fight.  
  
It was just a short fight, that was all. There were of course guards set up around the perimeters, but without their guns (which had electronic mechanisms) they were just as well off shooting spitballs at the Titans. Raven grabbed four of them simultaneously in a telekinetic hold and literally tossed them into the water. That left seventeen more guards to deal with.  
  
Cyborg cut that number down to twelve with a sweeping concussive burst from his sonic cannon. A few well placed starbolts shortened that down to only six, which were easily taken care of by a green elephant falling from the sky on top of them. Seriously.  
  
Even without electronics, Cyborg knew that the troopers inside the Tower had to know that the Titans were on the island. While he knew they were practically defenseless, he still had a plan that would enable the Titans to take complete control of the Tower.  
  
Before this recent turn of events, the Titans would never have imagined that they would be fighting against the law. Regardless, certain contingencies had been made to prevent another takeover the likes of which they had suffered at the hands of the HIVE. Cyborg had an encoded remote access link to the Tower's air filter system. He could, if the situation required it, cycle a harmless, yet powerful sedative that would have any and all occupants snoring like babies in a matter of seconds. Of course, He could also remotely dissipate the gas once it had had time to take effect. It was perfect for this situation.  
  
So Cyborg did just that, furiously tapping keys on the keypad built into his arm.  
  
"You get it yet?" asked Beast Boy nervously.  
  
Cyborg responded a few seconds later once he was through initiating the proper sequence. "Yep. We should only have to wait a few seconds."  
  
To everyone else's great annoyance, Beast Boy began orally counting them off. "One, two, three, four, five, six ,seven, eight, nine-"  
  
"Shut up already," Raven growled. "Its probably done its job by now anyway."  
  
Cyborg cocked his sonic cannon. "One way to find out for sure," he said.  
  
The Tower was eerily quiet in the absence of a running television or the hum of the overhead lights. All four conscious team members looked around for visual confirmation that the knockout gas had worked.  
  
Like a charm. There were unconscious forms in black suits or blue lab coats sprawled all over the place. At first, Starfire suffered a quick intake, for the scene looked as though the sprawled bodies were dead. When she calmed down however, she was able to see that they were quite alive, breathing in fact. She looked down at the boy in her arms, and her throat almost involuntarily constricted. She fought back a tear. "We'd better hurry and get Robin to the medical ward," she managed, trying not to sound choked up.  
  
Cyborg nodded. "Beast Boy, Raven, find all of the scientists and SpecOps people that are lying all over the place, and get 'em outta here. Make sure they aren't hurt. In fact, why don't you send them out to see on a lifeboat or something. Anything to safely get them out of the way."  
  
Beast Boy nodded. "Gotcha Tin Man," he said with a smart salute. In an istant, he had turned into a Gorilla and easily slung five of the unconscious bodies over his shoulder.  
  
Confident that it was being taken care of, Cyborg started up the stairs with Starfire trailing close behind. Five minutes was the length of time it took to get into the medical ward, and by then, Cyborg was worried that too much time had elapsed for them to be able to find Robin. Carefully, he took his teammate's limp form and put it on the medical table, once again summoning the medical tools built into his arm. He remembered Starfire was there right before he was about to start operating. "Look," he addressed her, "I don't know if you wanna be here to see me. . .uh . . ."  
  
Starfire cur him off with a raised hand. "It is OK. I will wait outside. She took one lat, longing look at Robin, and then walked out of the sterile room letting the steel sliding doors shut behind her.  
  
Cyborg took a deep breath, and set to work.  
  
"That's the last of 'em I think," Beast Boy said, changing back into his regular form and wiping his hands together. "Yep, that about does it.  
  
Raven surveyed the pile of unconscious bodies haphazardly arrayed in one of the Titans' spare lightweight watercraft. She nodded her head in silent agreement and then gave the boat a little telekinetic nudge towards the spot about two and a half miles out that most of the Coast guard and police were temporarily stuck in.  
  
"Bon voyage," Beast Boy called after it. "Hate to see you guys leave soon, we didn't even get to show you the entire place.  
  
Raven sniffed contemptuously and turned to walk away, only to be stopped by Beast Boy's voice.  
  
"What, what is it?" he asked. When he got no answer, he ran to catch up with the departing Raven. "What?" he asked again.  
  
Raven finally stopped and looked at him. "Can't you ever be serious?" she asked. "I mean, just once, could you not act like a two year old? Do you see those police boats out there? Have you been paying any attention whatsoever to the situation we're in? It is NOT the time to make stupid jokes and silly comments, and I every time I hear you do it, with all the crap we're in right now, it just ticks me off so much."  
  
Beast Boy was speechless for a few seconds. Finally he said. "You know, I don't get you Raven. You always walk around all dark and gloomy, and you think that's the only way to be. Do you really think its going to help if I act like you, Ms. Pessimistic, and mope around about the fact that we've got the whole city after us for stuff we didn't do?! For you information, I'm just as worried as you and Cyborg and Starfire, but wallowing around in negativity and self-pity won't make things better!" Beast Boy paused, realizing his voice had gotten loud. "I'm just-I'm just trying ease the tension, that's all."  
  
Raven eyed him dead on. "Don't," she said, "because you only make things worse."  
  
With that, she walked away.  
  
Starfire looked up hopefully when the door to the Med. Ward opened. "Well?" she asked, "is-is Robin going to make it?"  
  
Cyborg grinned. "I think I'll the guy tell you that himself." He stepped back to reveal Robin standing behind him.  
  
"Hey, Star," Robin managed. He was appalled at the way the words sounded when coming out, as if he'd said them while chewing on a cookie. He knew that the catalyst had taken some of energy, but he'd thought his mouth would at least work.  
  
He did not have the luxury of contemplating these thoughts however, for he was nearly bowled over by Starfire, who wrapped him in a squeeze so tight he could barely breathe. He had just gotten the message to his brain to reciprocate the embrace (after all, it wasn't everyday that he got the privilege of hugging Star, which was starting to feel very enjoyable) when she finally let go, pulling back so that her hands were resting on his shoulders. She searched his face. "Robin," she said softly. "Oh robin, you- you're alive."  
  
"That I am," Robin agreed. He paused. "Think you could fill me in on some things. Like why Cyborg here keeps saying I was shot?" He winced just then in response to some of the internal pain associated with such trauma to the body.  
  
Worriedly, Starfire propelled him out of the room and to the next, where there was a simple couch available.  
  
"Star?" Robin repeated.  
  
"Yes, um, you were fired upon when we were escaping from the PTV."  
  
"Oh." Robin wracked his brain for the memory of that moment. For a brief second, nothing came up, but then he remembered the laser targeting dot, and then a brief flash of pain as the Teflon coated round tore through his body armor. He gulped, gaining a new appreciation for cyborg's advanced medical expertise. "So how did we get back into the Tower?" he finally asked.  
  
Starfire grinned. "It was actually rather simple," she began. And so for the next half hour, she told him all of the details of all of the events that had transpired since Robin's near-fatal injury. It was nice, Robin thought, just to be able to spend a little time with Star, despite the deep trouble that the Titans were in. Perhaps things would be resolved quickly, perhaps not.  
  
Only time would tell.  
  
***  
  
"Any ideas? Anyone?" asked the Madam Director. Her piercing eyes scanned the group of stranded law enforcement officers.  
  
Morris tried to think up a solution. The Titans no doubt had their Tower back now, and given the means by which they were willing to reclaim it, he doubted they would give it up so easily again. He knew very little about EMP's but he doubted their effects would be lifting anytime soon, leaving hundreds of the city's best lawmen, detectives, scientists, and SpecOps forces helpless in the water with nary an electrical device.  
  
Richard was the first to spot it, and when he did, Morris naturally took notice too. There was a boat of some sort approaching. It had no apparent driver, but seemed to be stuffed to the drim with so much luggage that it was just barely staying afloat.  
  
Morris would have liked to be able to say he was the first to realize it, but that role fell upon the Madam Director, who stared impassively at the slowly drifting boat.  
  
"What is it?" Rishard asked.  
  
"The correct question would be, 'Who is it?'," The Madam Direstor stated. She waited until the boat finally reached them to make her point.  
  
Inside the boat, piled up on top of each other and clearly unconscious lay the sentries, the scientists, everybody that had been stationed at the tower.  
  
"Are they dead asked Richard?"  
  
"No, just unconscious," confirmed the Madam Director.  
  
Morris took off his glasses and cleaned the already spotless lenses, wondering how much farther this would go before the Titans were stopped.  
  
It wasn't often that Garvy Winter, the official head of the counter- terrorist network HACTA received a call in his office. So when he did receive one, and at a time when no one in this time zone should have been awake. He picked up the phone and pressed it to his ear, foregoing the customary 'who is it?' and opting to insteadl let the unknown party on the other end identify themselves.  
  
"Mr. Winter," the voice chirped. It was more a statement than a question.  
  
"Yes, who is this?"  
  
Madam Director of District 75-23 SpecOps."  
  
"Ah yes." Winter knew quite well that District 75-23 was the veritable hot zone of the time, what with those superpowered kids running amuck. "I was going to contact you tomorrow. Tell me, what exactly is going on? I hsve received several reports that our forces down near the island have been incommunicado for some time now."  
  
"I wish I could answer that," said the woman on the other end. "It appears to be some kind of anti-electronic device."  
  
"Then how are you able to contact me?"  
  
"I'm on shore?"  
  
"Why is that? Shouldn't you be with the other local law officers?"  
  
The woman sighed. "yes, but I received a report that was later revealed to be false. I had come ashore to check it out, and now I'm stranded here on shore. They're mad sir."  
  
"The titans?"  
  
"Yes sir. About a minute ago, I saw Starfire emerge from the Tower and attack our defenseless ground forces. She sunk a good dozen ships, causing God knows how many casualties. Sir, we need shock troops, we need trained, die-hard counter-terrorist units, SEAlS, anything that will end this madness." Winter was shocked. The lack of urgency in the Madam Director's voice had certainly belied the situation. That many dead? It was hard to believe.  
  
He knew what she was asking for, and as reluctant as he was to give the command, he didn't see any other options. The KomBATS as they were called would have to be deployed. It was a new government project, combining state- of the-art tech with specially breeded warriors to create a deadly new addition to the ranks of uncle Sam. The suits themselves gave the wearer twenty times normal strength and speed, flight, craploads of armaments both heavy and small arms, plus tons of other stuff that Winter couldn't even remember. They had been designed to defeat the likes of Superman should he ever go crazy, and it seemed like a waste to try them out on a couple of puffed up teens with mangy little superpowers. Simply put, it was overkill.  
  
With a sigh and a hope that this whole thing would just go away, Winter gave the command.  
  
The KomBATS were a' comin'.  
  
The 'Madam Director' smiled as she watched the events unfold from her cozy little spot a thousand feet up in the sky. Sometimes, Raven's levitatintg abilities could really come in handy, she thought. At least she hadn't had to waste energy taking on the Madam Director's entire appearance, the voice did just fine for her purposes.  
  
The sun was just beginning to come out over the horizon, Megan realized. It was actually a beuatiful sight, made all the more sweeter by the knowledge that the KomBATS were coming. And they would kick the Titans all the way back to the mudhole from whence they came.  
  
She chuckled. 'Whence'. That was a nice word. 


	8. Surprise Surprise

Five battle ready KomBATS stood on the helo pad that graced the top of the agency's headquarters. Patiently, they waited for their ride over to District 75-23. They would require helicopter transport, despite the fact that their suits had built in jetpacks. Why the helicopter? Because the Madam Director over there had insisted on it-she hadn't wanted them expending any more energy than absolutely necessary.  
  
Stacey Kinnekinnic, (who, despite the name, was a guy) popped a fresh blast cartridge into his left shoulder cannon. He was the leader of the KomBAT unit, and was quite frankly none too happy about having his authority superceded on this matter by some know-it-all Madam Director in another district who, with all the resources at her disposal, couldn't manage to handle a couple of puffed up juveniles. Shoot, he thought, why not bribe the kids into surrender with some acne cream or Snoop Dogg CD's. With kids these days, it might even work.  
  
"Watcha thinkin' Cap? Asked Crystal Sharpe, the second member of the unit. She was the youngest member of the KomBATS at twenty-two, as well as the tallest-she stood above even six-foot two Stacey. Her voice had a distinctive southern twang to it, one that was mostly blocked by the full head helmets that were a part of the KomBAT armor.  
  
"Nothin', Stacey answered reflexively. He turned to Mikey Ross, KomBAT number three. "Mikey, you've got your sensors on. You pickin' up the helo?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, yes," Mikey reported. He quickly tapped a few more buttons on the keypad built into the forearm section of his battle armor. "ETA is like, five minutes."  
  
"Bout time," grumbled the fourth team member. Maria-Pilar was originally Puerto-Rican, and had spent time as a magazine and beauty model up until a few years prior. Her secondary, secret job had been as an undercover agent, and one that one fateful night, she had the misfortune of being captured by the Mob, the very people she had been trying to infiltrate. She'd been found three days later crudely tied to a chair with her body soaked with her own blood and her left arm lying at her feet. She never told anybody what had happened to her, and all anyone knew was that she'd been roughed up and had her left arm removed. Maria-Pilar now wore a biomechanical replacement arm. Needless to say, her career as a model was finished.  
  
She was now with the KomBATS, and was one of their most valuable members, especially with her eidetic memory. After her horrific encounter, she'd developed the ability of total recall. Anything she saw, heard, or otherwise absorbed through her senses was committed to memory, never to be forgotten. Maria Pilar shifted her weight so that she was no longer leaning against the wall. "Five of us, five of the titans," she said. "One on one, I like that."  
  
The final member of the group was Hans Kirst. He was only five foot ten inches, but he more than made up for it with pure muscle. Every inch of him was roughened, conditioned muscle. He could bench-press 500 pounds without breaking a sweat and had broken nearly every single weight-lifting world record at some time or another, though no one would ever know it. Kirst didn't talk much, but he was a reliable fighter. Efficient, and cool under fire.  
  
The thwop thwop thwop of the helicopters could be heard now as they approached , their silhouettes just barely visible against the backdrop of the early morning sun. They neared closer as the five KomBATS patiently waited for the two helicopters to touch the ground.  
  
Stacey surveyed the KomBATS. "Lets go," he said.  
  
***  
  
It was seven o'clock in the morning now, and Robin was preparing coffee. Decaf. His teammates were all asleep, seeing as they hadn't had a good rest all night.  
  
His thoughts wandered to Nightwing as he sipped his hastily prepared beverage. His former assistant mentor had not radioed in for quite a while, which was quite unfortunate, because Robin had a hunch. A good hunch, and he would need Nightwing's resources, namely his connection with the Bat himself, in order to play it out.  
  
The Boy Wonder glanced tenderly back at Starfire. His gaze remained for a few seconds to long as he lost himself in his thoughts. She looked so beautiful, so vulnerable right now. And he couldn't help but think it was partly his fault.  
  
She stirred, as if she could sense his gaze. She had been lying on the couch and now propped herself up sleepily on one elbow. "Hey," she managed lazily before drifting off again.  
  
"Hey," Robin responded softly.  
  
He heard the soft sound of something hitting the ground behind him an instant before he heard Nightwing's voice.  
  
"You got it bad, man."  
  
"Robin's eyes widened comically. "Nightwing, what happened. How come you didn't report back in?"  
  
"You never said to."  
  
Robin was about to object, but then he realized that Nightwing was right. "We were worried," he said finally.  
  
"Awww, I'm touched," joked Nightwing. He nodded his head over in Starfire's direction. "What's with you and Sleeping Beauty over there?"  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"Have you asked her out yet?' Nightwing asked, responding to Robin's question with one of his own.  
  
"Why would I do that?"  
  
"Because she's hot, because you like her. Because she likes you."  
  
"You're crazy man," Robin insisted, gulping down too much of the hot coffee, which launched him into a slight coughing fit.  
  
Nightwing clapped him on the shoulder. "Ah Tim," he said. "You are the crazy one here." He gave a lazy shrug. "But hey you're only fourteen, you probably don't recognize the signs of having a crush."  
  
"Fifteen, and if you don't mind," Robin started, having just regained his composure , "We have problems that are way too big to be entertaining wild romantic notions, OK. "  
  
Nightwing actually looked sorry for once. He was speechless for a moment and then nodded. "You look like you have a plan," he said, changing the subject, "what is it?"  
  
"A hunch, really." Robin set the coffee down. "It's this nagging feeling I've had for a while now." He turned towards the stairway. "I was going to go to he computer room, I think you should come along so you can see what you think of this."  
  
"What is 'this'?"  
  
"You'll see."  
  
With that, Robin turned and strode up the stairs with his teammate in tow. It took them precisely thirty seconds to reach the computer room. A quick retinal scan was all it took for Robin to gain them entry.  
  
Nightwing's gaze was immediately directed to the large computer monitor that lay against the far wall, or rather, what was on it.  
  
"A map," Robin began explaining, "of the bank that I supposedly robbed and the surrounding blocks."  
  
"So?"  
  
Robin typed furiously on the keyboard and then the overhead image disappeared to be replaced by the footage of Robin entering the bank.  
  
"I've seen this before," said Nightwing.  
  
"So have I,' said Robin. "But what I missed was the way that my impersonator entered."  
  
Nightwing squinted at the screen. He had no idea what Robin was talking about.  
  
"Notice how all the other customers come in from the right side?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Do you know why that is?"  
  
"No."  
  
"The bank is at the end of the street. To its left, the street in torn up from unfinished construction work that was stopped a couple weeks ago and was set to resume again. Across the street is a fast food restaurant. I won't bother showing you the layouts of that place, so you'll have to trust me when I say that I've been there, and one of their hidden surveillance cams has a clear view of the area to the left of the bank."  
  
"What," you think it might have caught something on tape?"  
  
"If I'm lucky, it'll catch my impersonator changing into me."  
  
'It's a long shot."  
  
"It's the only one we have," Robin countered. "This, by the way, is where you come in."  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yeah. I need you to get a copy of that fast food restaurant's surveillance tapes.  
  
"Break in and steal them, you mean," Nightwing reworded.  
  
Robin shrugged. "Hey, we've broken sop many laws in the past twelve hours that breaking and entering and theft can't do much more damage."  
  
"They've been awful quiet," Nightwing observed softly.  
  
"The Coast guard and every other government agency that's been hounding us down? Yeah. They're probably preparing for another strike." Robin ran a hand through his hair. "They can beat us you know."  
  
"I know."  
  
"They could kick our butts to Timbuktu and back. When it comes down to it, a couple of kids with powers are just a nuisance. And when the higher levels of the chain of command get tired of it, they're going to stop playing around, roll up their sleeves, and send some formidable opponents up against us."  
  
There was a long pause, and then Robin, in one rare flash of psychic talent said, "Perhaps they already have."  
  
*** 3 hours later.  
  
Ah can't understand how it stays standin'," whispered Crystal Sharpe as the Tower came into view. "Seems so off balance."  
  
Stacey nodded. It must have been a very proficient architect indeed who managed to construct a functional T-shaped tower in the middle of an island.  
  
"Shall I set down now?" asked the pilot?"  
  
Stacey looked down. They were right above the island. He doubted there would be a more opportune time to land. "Do it."  
  
'The high-tech chopper did something comparable to a nosedive, plummeting down to an abrupt stop scant yards above the ground. An ordinary person would have hurled their lunch. The KomBATS, of course, were not ordinary people.  
  
"What's the plan now?" Maria-Pilar asked.  
  
Stacey's mouth went into a grim line. "We attack. Don't hold back, go at it with full power."  
  
"But they're just kids."  
  
Stacey shrugged. "I don't like it much either, but according to our briefings, the Titans have attacked, even killed some of our people. This ends now, no matter what."  
  
With a powerful blast from his shoulder cannon, he turned the front door into so much scrap metal. Rushing inside, he instinctively swept the area with his Pyron 2000, a secondary gun with bullets the size of watermelon seeds that left holes the size of watermelons. It was a dependable weapon, but it had no trigger-safe spring joint. The slightest touch against the trigger would send the deadly, Teflon-laced projectiles screaming into the air. Usually, he took extra care not to depress the trigger in the slightest. Today, he didn't. With a ratatatatata tat sound, he sprayed the room with lead. Pictures were shattered. A fish tank exploded, the television acquired about a hundred and fifty new holes where there shouldn't have been any. The walls were getting ripped apart.  
  
Behind him, Mikey and Hans, rushed sideways to cover the adjoining rooms, taking the lead from Stacey and similarly tearing the place up. Maria-Pilar and Crystal activated their jetpacks, sending them upward at a little over seventy miles an hour. They crashed through the ceiling like it was Styrofoam, flying up the floor of the above room.  
  
***  
  
Beast Boy came out of the shower, shivering slightly at the cool air. He picked up his Ninja turtles towel and then took a small peek in the fogged over mirror before reaching for his clothes.  
  
Usually, and much to the annoyance of his teammates, he sang like there was no tomorrow when he was in the shower. Today, he'd been strangely silent.  
  
He still couldn't get what Raven had said out of his mind. 'Don't, because you only make things worse.' The words themselves had hurt, but that wasn't it. It was the way she had said it too. So coldly, almost with disgust in her voice.  
  
Did she really detest him? The thought send a cold feeling crawling across his skin. "Probably does," he said to himself miserably as he put his clothes on. "She probably sees you as just an annoying green little wannabe comedian." He had used to entertain the notion that Raven could possibly be interested in him. God, he sure liked her-had ever since they'd first met. It was a fanciful notion, but he'd kept it nonetheless, hoping that it might actually happen.  
  
Yeah right  
  
It was right then that the floor broke. Literally broke. Out of nowhere, two figures popped up through it, sending shards and splinters flying all over the place.  
  
Any and all thought of his unrequited went flying out the window. Beast Boy yelled his guts out. 


	9. The chapter before the showdown w the sh...

"What does 'going out' mean?" Starfire asked Robin innocently.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Going out. That it was Nightwing said, is it not?" Starfire asked.  
  
Robin's eyes went wide through the mask. "You heard that?" he croaked, almost choking on his coffee.  
  
"Was I not supposed to?"  
  
"Well, I, um." Robin could feel his face going warm. "How much did you hear?" he asked.  
  
"Of your conversation with Nightwing? The whole thing. I do not remember much though because I was in the process of going to sleep."  
  
"You don't remember much," Robin repeated, trying to keep relief out his voice. It had been embarrassing enough the way Nightwing had kidded him about Starfire, but for Starfire to have heard . . .  
  
"No, but I do seem to remember him saying something about you 'going out' with me. Tell me, does this going out process involve mustard?"  
  
"Not exactly."  
  
"Well tell me, what is it."  
  
Robin sighed. "Going out is when two people, you know, like each other and decide to go to a movie or a restaurant together."  
  
Starfire thought about this for a moment. The she blushed. "Oh."  
  
"It was a misunderstanding of course," Robin quickly said. "He was just joking around."  
  
"Oh." A brief look of hurt flashed across her face, but it was there and gone so fast that Robin didn't catch it. "So you and will not be going out, shall we."  
  
Robin was spared having to answer by a loud yell, undoubtedly Beast Boy's. Robin arched a brow in confusion "Poor guy must've turned the shower water on too hot," he remarked.  
  
Then the kitchen wall exploded, or rather, imploded from their point of view. Starfire threw up an energy shield to cover her and Robin right before a deadly hail of debris hit them.  
  
These military types, impatient to the last. Couldn't even wait for the two Titans to get a good look at 'em before opening fire. Bullets and energy bolts sizzled against Starfire's energy shield. They didn't care, they had bigger ammo anyway.  
  
The two KomBATS were Hans and Mikey. Of the two, Mikey was the first to bring out his shoulder-mounted bazooka. It was a Monstrosity to the last, seven feet of pure chaos and destruction. It didn't even fire projectiles, but rather ion blasts that had the concussive power of three or four hand grenades.  
  
BOOOM. The ion bolt instantly hit Starfire's makeshift energy shield. No way, Hans thought, could they defend themselves against that.  
  
The time that had elapsed from the wall exploding to now was precisely three seconds.  
  
***  
  
Stacey heard the various reports from firearms all throughout the place. Good, he thought. A surprise attack is always the best way to catch the enemy off guard. Even better is a sustained surprise attack, to keep them from regaining that guard.  
  
He felt a cold chill creep through his suit, it was almost supernatural. He looked down at his suit. A black energy wave seemed to be enveloping him.  
  
"Hello," said a voice from behind him. He turned around to see the telekinetic Titan, Raven, he thought it was. She was floating menacingly in the air above his head, and if she'd ever possessed pupils, he sure couldn't see this now.  
  
Oh crap.  
  
"Azarath."  
  
Stacey reached for his gun. His hands felt sluggish, it was hard to move.  
  
"Metrion."  
  
Oh crap oh crap oh crap  
  
"Zinthos." Raven's hand flew out to the side in a flash of motion. So did Stacey. He smashed right into a wall, or rather, right through it to come crashing right back into the room he'd entered through. Being a KomBAT, he rarely got the experience of feeling pain. Here it was though, shooting up through his shoulder. Hurt like the devil too.  
  
Stupid girl. He managed to draw out his Pyron 20000 and turned, instinctively firing, even when she was only in her peripheral vision.  
  
Raven tried to stop all off the bullets before they got anywhere near her, but these were hard to get a good mental grip on and were moving much faster than your everyday bullet. Two even managed to slip by her telekinetic shield, and she'd barely slowed them down enough for them not to penetrate instead of bouncing rather painfully off. She immediately went for the gun, viciously yanking it out of his hand with her telekinesis. She slammed her hands together and twisted them as if she was crumpling a piece of paper. The gun folded, and then finally crumpled.  
  
Energy sacs are the ammunition that energy-projecting firearms use. They are stored in a near-indestructible chamber to protect them, as the raw energy they contain is quite volatile. Unfortunately for Stacey, his gun not only fired bullets, but had back-up energy blast barrels that of course required these energy sacs. When Raven telekinetically crumpled the gun, fifteen energy sacs exploded simultaneously, creating a blast so potent it literally picked Stacey up off his feet and slammed him into a wall.  
  
***  
  
Hans and Mikey waited for the smoke to clear. Unfortunately for them, Robin and Starfire didn't wait that long. Hans was hit square in the chest by an explosive birdarang while Mikey received two simultaneous starbolts to his abdomen. They didn't get through his armor of course, but they sure stunned him, and Hans was thrown to the ground in a flash by the force of the birdarang's blast.  
  
Mikey had dropped the bazooka, but he scrambled to pick it up now. He got it in his hands and flipped it back onto his shoulder in one swift move that he integrated with a somersault. He flipped the switch to the highest setting, powerful enough to destroy entire aircraft, and aimed the barrel at Starfire. His finger had just begun tightening on the trigger when a birdarang came from seemingly nowhere and slammed into the barrel. It wasn't enough force to knock the bulky weapon out of Mikey's hands but it was enough to knock his aim off. The resulting blast knocked a hole straight through the wall.  
  
They had paired off now. Robin was battling Mikey and Starfire was battling Hans. She didn't give the startled KomBat enough time to react from the explosive birdarang before she hit him with her most powerful starbolts, each blast driving him back. Her hands were a blur of motion, hurling powerful beams of energy left and right and concentrating the blasts on one particular spot on Hans' chest. "You . . .have . . .attacked . . .my . . .friends," she gritted out through clenched teeth as she continued the assault.  
  
Hans was being forced backwards as each blast came closer and closer to pounding his defenses, his arms were crossed in front of his head in a vain attempt to ward off the starbolts. "That's what happens when you and you're buddies rob stores and attack government officials and agents, you get attacked right back. Deal with it." He managed to jump to the side and draw his .50 Desert Eagle. He fired twice. The first shot whizzed by Starfire's ear. The second hit her in the arm, the force of the powerful round violently spinning her around in midair. Her concentration on floating faltered and she dropped to the ground like a stone.  
  
Meanwhile, Robin was having slightly better luck with Mikey thanks to his own rather impressive arsenal which included freeze disks, explosive birdarangs, regular birdarangs, a handheld taser, his collapsible bo staff, and his flash pellets among other things. He may not have been as well armored or as strong as the KomBat, but he certainly had more maneuverability. Mikey tried to punch him, but he easily hopped high and over Mikey's head with an impressive airborne flip, landing behind Mikey. He retreated a few steps and then launched at him with an equally impressive airborne kick that actually caused the armored trooper to stumble back. Robin followed up with a side kick which Mikey managed to block and then opted for a close-fisted punch that shattered the faceplate of Mikey's helmet. Then Mikey got lucky and was able to knee the Boy Wonder in the stomach which caused Robin to temporarily stop the attack.  
  
Robin looked at Mikey, who's face through the broken faceplate was sweaty with blood pouring freely from the right nostril. His armor was burnt and singed from Starfire's earlier onslaught.  
  
Mikey looked at Robin, whose mask was slightly torn and who no doubt had a couple bruised, if not broken ribs.  
  
Unless something very significant happened, it was going to be a long fight.  
  
***  
  
Beast Boy yelled. And yelled. And yelled some more until he finally had to stop to catch his breath. He did so and would have started yelling again were it not for the large gun that came out of nowhere and managed to end up under his chin in the blink of an eye. He wisely shut up.  
  
"Beast Boy, right," said the one on the left, the one holding the gun under his chin.  
  
Beast Boy nodded.  
  
"Hi kid, my name's Crystal, Crystal Sharpe. You can call me Ms. Sharpe if you wish."  
  
Beast Boy didn't respond. He was confused. His eyes strayed down to the gun. It looked like more of a cannon than a gun, he observed.  
  
It's a Desert Eagle, standard issue for us KomBats. Don't worry, I won't shoot you with it as long as you cooperate."  
  
"this is about last night, isn't it."  
  
"Fraid so kid. You and you're buddies caused quite a ruckus from what I hear, which is why they sent us AAAAAAGHH!" She broke off in mid-sentence with a bloodcurdling scream. Electric sparks danced over her body armor and she shuddered violently, the gun falling out of her shaking hands. Then she went limp, falling down and revealing Cyborg standing behind her with an electronic taser in his out stretched hand. The other KomBat instinctively went for her gun, but then a green, scaly tail slammed into her from the side, knocking her down in an instant.  
  
Beast Boy reverted back to normal shape. "Who are these guys?" he asked incredulously of Cyborg.  
  
The boy robot shrugged. "How should I know? I was just recharging when I heard you screamin' your head off and came in here to find you chilling with these two ladies here."  
  
Beast boy frowned. "Lets go find Robin. I have a bad feeling about this."  
  
"Maybe it would help if you put your pants on."  
  
ZAPP  
  
BANG  
  
Two different discharges from two different types of guns. What types of guns they were is irrelevant. All that's important is that they were fired by Crystal Sharpe and Maria-Pilar from behind in what was the age-old strategy of playing possum. Cyborg was hit with an energy pulse, knocking him out and causing his electrical systems to go completely haywire. Beast Boy was hit by a tranquilizing dart. Normally it would have taken at least twenty seconds to knock him out, but Maria Pilar had put in three times the normal amount of knockout fluid. Beast Boy was out cold before he hit the floor.  
  
***  
  
He had it. He finally had it. The tape was in his hands now and the restaurant owners probably didn't even know it was missing. Nightwing looked down at the tape and fervently hoped that whatever was on it would clear Robin's name.  
  
He took a left turn on his motorcycle and sped down the highway and towards the tower. 


	10. Defeat

Mikey fell, after what had been a long, hard fight. Robin twirled his bo staff and returned it to its sheath, breathing heavily. He was pretty sure he had a cracked rib from when the Kombat had violently elbowed him in the side.  
  
His vision went in and out of focus, and he steadied himself, turning around ever so slightly. That was enough though. Shock went through his mind like an iron fist when he saw Starfire lying on the ground, eyes closed, with blood streaming out of her arm. "Star," he croaked, snapping to attention.  
  
He came face to face with a barrel. A large barrel belonging to a large gun that looked like a cross between a handgun and a cannon. He froze.  
  
"Game's over kid," said Hans. It sounded kind of funny since the man's mouth and jaw had obviously taken their fair share of starbolts.  
  
"Look down," Robin said. Hans did, his eyes narrowing when he saw the circular disk that Robin held an inch from his armor. "It won't kill you," Robin said, but at this range, and set at high intensity . . .flash frostbite, even through the armor. You'll be remembering the time when you used to have fingers and toes." Robin wasn't kidding. The guy had shot Starfire, and now she was bleeding away on the floor. Screw the consequences, he wasn't going to let this arrogant punk in a pumped up battle suit get in his way.  
  
"Kid, you've already got a rap sheet longer than your arm, don't make it worse by threatening a police officer."  
  
"You're no policeman," Robin said. "Or you wouldn't have shot Starfire.  
  
"I'm a government agent, boy, and I'm here to protect the world from little punks like you. Do you have any idea how many deaths YOU'VE caused?"  
  
"Enlighten me."  
  
"An elderly lady in the bank."  
  
"Wasn't me."  
  
"Do I look like I have the word stupid stamped on my forehead?"  
  
"May as well." Robin's posture shifted just a little. He raised his glove to his mouth. "Sentinel, sustained fire on foreign body!" He yelled.  
  
A section of the ceiling suddenly disappeared and a double barreled plasma cannon descended. It acquired Hans in a matter of seconds and with a flash of light, Each barrel released enough raw, destructive energy to total a tank.  
  
And Hans was no tank, he yelled as the blasts slammed him into the wall. His gun flew out of his hand and when the barrage finally stopped, he collapsed to the ground, smoke, along with the smell of burned rubber and plastic rose in the air. He was hurt, but he would live.  
  
The Sentinel system had just occurred to Robin. It was an elaborate network of auto-targeting computerized plasma cannons that had been installed in order to prevent another takeover like they'd faced when the H.I.V.E. had taken over the Tower. It sure had come in handy.  
  
The creak of a footstep behind the door to the room put his senses on edge. He held on to the freeze disk and carefully walked over to the wall on the right side of the door, which would keep him out of sight of whoever that was behind the door, for a few seconds at least.  
  
The door opened, and two KomBats walked through, both female. Robin wasted no time. He kicked at the door with all his might, causing it to slam into the second KomBat and knock her to the ground. The first one whipped out a gun and fired at where Robin's head had been, but hit nothing. He ducked ad pivoted, his right leg connecting behind her left knee, and causing her to lose her balance. In the blink of an eye, Robin knocked her gun away with his bo staff. She flipped backwards, avoiding another swipe. Meanwhile, the other KomBat got to her feet and reached to her gun belt.  
  
So little time, so much to do. Robin leaped at the first KomBat, his feet impacting against her chest with a solid thud. Using that to propel himself, he did a nearly impossible backflip, landing on the other ones shoulders. Before she could react, he slammed a tightly curled fist through the faceplate, impacting solidly with, and probably breaking her nose. She staggered against the wall and he braced his back against it, using the stability to kick outward with all his might and depositing her right on top of her teammate.  
  
He had to give them credit, they sure reacted fast. They were on their feet again in a flash, quickly moving into an attack position, one on either side. He didn't think their martial arts stances were fake either. They definitely had had some training sometime in the past. How much? That was yet to be determined.  
  
He relaxed into his jujitsu stance, remembering everything that his own teacher, Batman, had taught him.  
  
"There's two of us, and only one of you said the first one. She had a distinctly Hispanic accent.  
  
Robin shrugged. "Oh well, I never did like numbers anyway."  
  
"What'd you do to Hans?"  
  
"What'd you do to Beast Boy and Cyborg?"  
  
"They'll live."  
  
"So will your friend Hans."  
  
The one with the Hispanic accent stepped cautiously forward, close enough so that a well executed kick could actually make contact. And vice versa.  
  
They would never find out. A blue bolt of sonic energy caught the Hispanic one right in the face. If her nose hadn't been broken before, it sure as heck was now. In the meantime, a levitated chair covered in a strange black energy flew at the other Kombat with amazing speed, clipping the underside of her chin. The momentum lifted her off the ground and knocked her helmet clean off her face. Her body twisted and a trail of blood left her mouth, arcing through the air in a sickening spiral. She hit the ground, and was quite clearly not going to be getting up anytime soon.  
  
Cyborg and Raven: Robin could have recognized their signatures anywhere. Beast Boy in kangaroo morph was trailing behind them. "Hey guys, glad to see you're OK."  
  
"Beast Boy and I were knocked out for a while," said Cyborg.  
  
"You look terrible Robin," Raven commented. Robin touched a gloved hand to the corner of his mouth, only a little surprised when it came away with blood.  
  
Starfire! He'd almost forgotten about her.  
  
"What is it Robin?" asked Raven.  
  
"Starfire. She's-"  
  
"A little hurt, that is all," finished Starfire for him. She was sitting up and holding her arm, blood seeping through her fingers. Robin rushed over to her, dropping to his knees.  
  
"You're bleeding," he observed.  
  
"It is . . .nothing," she insisted. "The bullet just skimmed my skin, that is all."  
  
Robin already had the gauze in his utility belt out. "Still, we need to stop the bleeding," he said firmly.  
  
Starfire nodded.  
  
***  
  
"Sir the KomBats are down."  
  
"What?!"Garvy Winter roared from his office. He pounded his desk. It was impossible. How the KomBats have been defeated.  
  
"We don't know how it happened," the officer on the line continued, as if reading Winter's mind," But they have been put out of commission. None of them are conscious."  
  
"Any dead?"  
  
"No sir."  
  
Winters frowned. It didn't make any sense. According to the Madam Director, they had slaughtered half the government forces. It seemed odd that they would spare the lives of the KomBats.  
  
That was of course completely ignoring the question: How had they been defeated? How seriously must they have underestimated the Titans in order for them to defeat the best fighting force the government had to offer.  
  
"Is there any good news?"  
  
"Yes sir. Fifty fresh attack helicopters as well as a platoon of boats and several hundred of our armed forces are currently approaching the island. They're no KomBats, but they are highly trained, and should be quite formidable in bulk."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Also, we got an official response from the Justice League."  
  
"Oh really."  
  
"Yes. It reads, and I quote, 'We are doing what we can.'. Nothing further is specified."  
  
"Figures. Gimme an ETA on our reinforcements."  
  
"We're talking seconds, sir."  
  
"Excellent." For the first time that day, Garvey relaxed in his chair. "Excellent."  
  
And then he received the most important phone call he'd received in a long, long, time.  
  
***  
  
"What do we do with these guys?" Beast Boy asked, nodding his head towards the two fallen KomBats.  
  
"I don't know," Robin said. "If they wake up, we'll just have to but them back out or something."  
  
At that moment, a bright light invaded the room through the window. Many of them, actually, but they seemed to merge together to form one singular wave of brightness that froze Robin and the Titans in their tracks like deer in headlights.  
  
Helicopters, was Robin's first thought. They had sent in helicopters, and the Titans were in no shape to be doing any more fighting. Starfire was wounded, Beast Boy was still woozy from the tranquilizers, and Cyborg wasn't doing to well either, since most of his systems power was diverted to fixing his sensitive electronics that had been damaged. Robin didn't want to think about the multiple injuries he'd procured in the intense battle with the KomBats, and they were all exhausted.  
  
Squinting, he raised his hands in a sign of surrender. He was tired of fighting, they all were.  
  
***  
  
"Looks like they're surrendering," said one helicopter pilot over the comm.  
  
"Doesn't matter," said the leader. "Orders are to shoot on sight." His hand tensed on the trigger. When the on screen computer read 'target acquired', he pulled the trigger, activating the deadly machine gun turrets on the copter's belly.  
  
***  
  
"Run!' Robin yelled at the top of his lungs when he saw the machine guns swivel right in their direction. In a rush of adrenaline, he picked made a wild dash, yanking Starfire and Cyborg right off the ground where they were sitting.  
  
Starfire, who was facing towards the window as Robin whisked her off, opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. A torrent of bullets tore through the class, producing the loudest noise she'd ever heard. The light hanging down from the kitchen ceiling exploded, sending millions of little shard flying through the air. One or two sliced through her cheek, but she was too shocked to notice. The ceiling was ripped to shreds, almost as if in slow motion.  
  
Then she was out of the kitchen and in the TV room. Robin was holding on to her so tight that even Cyborg's strength couldn't have freed her. With a terrifying BOOM, the kitchen exploded, debris flying every which way. Still more bullets, chewing up the floor.  
  
And then, a dark object whizzed past her head, and the wall in front of Robin exploded, knocking him and all the other Titans back in a concussive flash of heat and smoke. Robin sprawled to the ground, and everyone collapsed right after.  
  
***  
  
The helicopter pilot had them now. They were dead, or were going to be in another couple of seconds anyway. The stream of bullets would reach the fallen Titans in a matter of seconds, and thanks to his missile, they were immobile.  
  
"HOLD YOUR FIRE! HOLD YOUR FREAKIN' FIRE!" a voice blared over the radio. Had it been his commander, he doubted he would have listened. He'd have at least nailed the Titans before stopping, he was pretty trigger happy now.  
  
But it was not his commander. It was Garvey Winters, the director of HACTA, one of the most powerful government organizations on the face of the earth. Winters was very powerful indeed , and he had a reputation for directing that power against defiant subordinates in very creative, very career- flushing ways.  
  
He let go of the trigger.  
  
A/N: Very sorry, I sorta promised that there would be a showdown with the shapeshifter in this chapter, which, due to a number of things, there is not.  
  
That said, I hope you will review anyway, and I will try to update sooner this time. 


	11. The Lesser of Two Evils

Lex Luthor watched his beautiful bodyguard/chauffeur Mercy sweep the room for bugs and other foreign devices as she did whenever they entered the mansion. She was amazing and words like 'athletic' and 'agile' did not do her justice. Part of him wondered what it would be like to cross the line of employer/employee that was drawn between them. It would never happen of course – she was far too professional for that – but it was a fun thought nonetheless.

"The place is clean, Mr. Luthor," Mercy informed him.

"Excellent. Shall we check-" He frowned. "I thought I closed all the windows before I left. Why is that one slightly ajar?"

Mercy's eyebrows shot up and she went for her gun. She never got the chance to pull it out. A black-clad figure from the ceiling dropped down and spin-kicked her hand, audibly crunching finger bones. Mercy's face went white with pain, and then she was mercifully (no pun intended) put out of her misery with a nerve block. Lex watched aghast as his bodyguard fell to the ground like so much dead weight. As she fell, an ominous dark outline materialized behind her.

"Batman," Luther croaked, reaching toward his desk drawer. A batarang flew through the air and imbedded itself in the mahogany, coming awfully close to slicing off a few of Lex's fingers. He wisely withdrew his hand.

"So, the vigilante from Gotham pays me a visit. I suppose there's a reason behind this illegal intrusion of my home and assault upon my chauffeur."

"There is," said a familiar voice from behind. Lex whirled around to see his perennial foe, Superman, along with the famed Wonder Woman. Lex gulped. He may have had some semblance of a chance of dealing with Batman, but not these other two. His shoulders slumped.

"I bet you have no idea why we're here, Lex," said Batman.

"Enlighten me."

"Does the name Megan Hartwell mean anything to you?" Wonder Woman asked.

It did, but Lex remained silent.

"I'll give you a hint," she continued. "A little girl. Her parents were involuntary test subjects in one of LutherCorps's lab experiments. They died a year later, but not before you created Megan from their respective reproductive cells. You gave her implanted memories, a little brainwork done to make her completely loyal to you. Our guess is, something backfired and she wound up psychotic instead."

"I changed her last name to Fraud," Lex added unrepentantly. "A bit of irony for you. And yes, she did become psychotic. Things happen. That was twelve years ago. What does this have to do with you breaking into my home?"

"Don't feign stupidity Lex," advised Superman. "You know about the recent altercations between the Teen Titans and the law, and most importantly, you know how it started."

"Its not my fault that the girl went crazy."

"Perhaps not, but it is your fault that she hates the Teen Titans," said Batman. "The memories you planted in her- they included a natural hatred for other metahumans.

Lex scowled. "How could you possibly know all of this?"

"You'd be surprised at the resources I possess," said Batman. "Now here's what you're going to do . . ."

* * *

Garvey Winters rewound the tape and watched it again. And again. And again. There were five different video analysis experts watching it with him. He had told them to say something at the first possible indication that the video had been doctored, such as a break in the footage or spliced frames. They were silent.

He looked back over his shoulders at the Teen Titans, who, with him, were on the police cruiser's main deck. They were handcuffed, although Winters knew the only thing keeping them from breaking free was that they had lost the will to fight. He wasn't surprised. They looked tired and bruised. The orange-skinned one had a bloodied makeshift bandage around her arm. They all looked so young and so . . .vulnerable.

He turned around to fully face them, taking in a deep breath. "Well," he said, "It looks like Robin is innocent, at least from this video."

"Still," said the Madame Director, speaking up from behind. "These teenagers have done hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage and injured at least dozen government agents, not to mention the KomBats and my murdered men. If they are indeed innocent of the robbery, they are still guilty of a multitude of other felonies committed after the fact. At the very least, they acted in extreme disproportion to-"

"We acted disproportionately?!" Beast Boy exploded. "You sent in a whole friggin platoon after us with like no proof."

The Madame Director ignored his outburst. "In my opinion, Mr. Winters, these five should be securely restrained and immediately transported to a more secure facility."

"Awful bloodthirsty on this one, aren't you?" Winters noticed, then shook his head. "Never mind. I suppose you're more than justified given the deaths of your men."

To the side, Morris frowned, pieces of a puzzle that had been forming in his head suddenly coming together. "With all due respect sir," he said, "the Madame Director is lying. We sustained no casualties in our confrontation wit the Titans."

"I can assure you, we did," said the Madame Director, scowling at Morris. "Two of the local police officers were killed by ultrasonic blasts like those that Cyborg can create. Five others were found with birdarang shiruken imbedded in their necks.

"That is true," spoke up another one of the present police officers. "I saw that myself."

"That's because probably because the same person who impersonated me in the robbery pulled another metamorphosis and killed the officers disguised as myself and the other Titans," said Robin.

"Preposterous!" sputtered the Madame Director. "For this person to have done that, they would need the most intimate access to our-"

"Agency? Exactly," Morris said, stepping forward. His hand slipped into his coat. A metamorph could turn into anyone, Madame Director. Including you." His hand came back out of the coat, this time with gun in hand. "Isn't that right, metamorph? I knew there was something different about you. Hair's too perfect. Suit's too crisp. Too energetic. Not enough wrinkles. You do good impersonations, but they're not perfect."

"Officer, put that gun down now!" commanded Winters. "Are you out of you're god-given mind?!"

"One way to find out," said Morris. "Ask her something. Something only the real Madam Director would know."

The Madame Director chuckled. "Too smart for your own good," she said. Then she moved. Far too fast for any of the room's occupants to react. In a split second, Morris found the gun he'd had trained on her now held by her and trained on Winters. "Mr. Winters," she said. "Please join this intelligent policeman here over-" A hailstorm of bullets cut her off. No one aims guns at the Director of HACTA, even one of the lower Directors. A dozen bullets slammed into her body, compliments of the other present military and law enforcement agents. She didn't even blink. "I get shot one more time and Winters here dies," she said, smirking at the shocked expression his ruddy face. "Now all of you, into the corner with the Titans. I-"

It was then that she noticed the Teen Titans were gone.

* * *

"Well, that explains a lot," said Beast Boy. The Titans were in the cargo hold, thanks to Raven's phase powers.

"We're in a really bad position," said Robin. "Running at half-strength and stamina. She's just getting warmed up, and it looks like she can duplicate all of our powers."

"You're the leader," Raven said. "What do we do?"

"I don't know. The facts are, she's at least as powerful at us and has a ship full of hostages that we know she won't hesitate to kill."

"Not very encouraging so far," commented Cyborg.

"We need to draw her out of the cabin and onto the deck," said Robin. Hopefully, the element of surprise will be enough. Care to do the honors, Star?"

"With pleasure." Starfire gathered energy to herself, her hands and eyes glowing with a bright, deadly green aura.

* * *

The sound was deafening as Starfire's pure energy tore up through the deck and up into the early morning sky. Megan would have noticed it from a mile away. As it was, the explosion occurred right outside her window.

"Excuse me," she said in faux politeness. To her now-bound hostages. "This shouldn't take long."

She stepped outside. If she had looked to the side, she would have seen the sonic cannon locked on her. But she didn't, and as a result experienced a four hundred decibel blast from the left side. It sent her reeling right into a starbolt and the ensemble was completed with a deck table smashing down upon her, wielded in Raven's telekinetic blast.

She was so shocked at first that she didn't move for the first few seconds. Jus laid their, absorbing all that had elapsed in the last five seconds. There was something wet trickling down her nose. Blood. They had made her bleed.

Megan scowled. She was going to kill them. She easily pushed the table off of herself and stood up. They were surrounding her. Battle ready. It didn't matter though. They would die today.

Her right arm began to shift, molding itself into a perfect, working replica of Cyborg's cannon arm. She aimed it at Beast Boy and fired.

Beast Boy had been hit once by a sonic blast and didn't intend to repeat the experience. He went small. Serpentine. His shrinking body reducing in volume just enough to avoid the blast.

Robin, who'd had two birdarangs at the ready threw both with uncanny accuracy. Megan saw them coming in her peripheral and twisted, the very molecules of her body stretching and elongating, shifting her torso out of the way. It was like she was made of rubber. She aimed her own sonic cannon at Robin and fired, the shot going wide "You fools are in such a hurry to die," she mused aloud. Attacking me here, now . . ." She triple backflipped into the air, allowing one of Starfire's starbolts to pass harmlessly underneath her. Robin was amazed at how easily she could duplicate a move that he himself had used many times in the past. It had taken years to perfect, and here she was, able to copy it with a mere thought.

The problem, Robin realized, was that none of them could get close, putting those who were close range fighters such as himself and Beast Boy at a disadvantage. This girl had all of their powers and abilities at her beck and call.

As if in response to his very thoughts, Megan began to shift and change. The process was nowhere near as refined as Beast Boy's, but the end result was the same. Her mass increased exponentially. Her face twisted into a hideous grimace and kept shifting, scales etching themselves across her face.

"Dude, she's goin' prehistoric," yelled Beast Boy.

"You know what to do," Robin yelled back, gratified to see that for once, Beast Boy wasted no time in moving to action, beginning to transform himself. Soon, two killers that had not walked the earth in 65 million years stood facing each other. They looked similar, like the T-Rexes from Jurassic Park except infinitely more real. Their weight caused the cruiser to shift to one side, and only then did Robin realize that a fight between two dinos might very well be enough to sink the ship.

It didn't matter though, as the two were already charging at each other, smashing holes into the ground as they ran, wood splintering. The entire deck trembled with their force.

Megan was larger, Beast Boy realized as he charged. Whatever morph she had was bigger than his T-Rex and probably had about 3 tons on him. He would not survive a head on battle.

So he changed tactics, digging a gigantic claw into the deck and braking, turning his momentum forward into momentum that would power his sudden turning motion. As planned, his gigantic tail slammed into the side of Megan's head, shattering several teeth. She roared and tried to nip at his tail, but his slightly smaller form was also slightly faster.

A sonic blast caught Megan on the underside of her dinosaurs form's chin, snapping the beast's head back and shattering more teeth, perhaps even bone.

After a mere ten second fight, Megan realized that she would lose a dino to dino battle. She didn't have Beast Boy's experience, and engaging him directly was opening her up for attack from his pesky teammates.

Beast Boy went smaller still. Velociraptor. Also carnivorous, although much, much smaller and in extension much faster. The Velociraptor had a long, wickedly curved claw on the second toe of each foot and Beast Boy didn't hesitate to use that to his advantage, darting under Megan and slicing twin gashes into her vulnerable underbelly, rocking back on his tail. It was a move no real Velociraptor would have conceived of, but Beast Boy was much more intelligent than the extinct creature whose form he had taken.

Megan had no choice. She had to morph. Bird, perhaps. Being descended form dinosaurs, the jump from reptile to avian would not be long, and it would take the others off guard.

The fight was far from over.

* * *

Sgt. Morris watched helplessly from inside the cabin as the faux Madame Director and apparently misjudged Titans waged a titanic battle, oblivious to the fact that they would sink the entire ship if they kept it up. He himself was busy looking for a way out of his bonds, which were ironically the very handcuffs that had previously been on his belt. Utilizing Raven's telekinetic ability, the shape shifter, whoever she was, had bound all of them with their own cuffs and incinerated the keys with a concentrated sphere of star energy.

All past grievances aside, Morris found himself rooting for the Teen Titans, hoping that despite all government operations to subdue them, they still had enough fight to take on this new and deadly player in the game.

* * *

AN: Yeah, It's been a LONG time since I updated this (or any) fic. There are multiple reasons (school, computer viruses, etc.) that contributed to this, but suffice to say, I didn't think I was going to bother with it anymore. Then I received a review a few weeks back reminding me that there had been no official notification of the status of the story, and I had left an readers merely hanging out there in the void, so to speak. For that, I apologize. I decided to write another chapter and, if it works out, I plan to update on a regular basis again. If not, then at least you know why. Comments, constructive criticism, all welcome.

-Godfather


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